Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. I'm just borrowing the characters so I can play with them a little bit.
A/N: Obviously at some point, the FBI gave Jane a cell phone. For the sake of this chapter, I'm just going to assume that she had it by this point, though I can't remember if we'd seen it or not in the first 2-3 episodes.
She reached the top of the stairs, her mantra - It's going to get better – still echoing in her head. For a split second she thought that she'd heard a faint noise coming from somewhere in the house, but she reminded herself that she was simply being paranoid.
It's a safe house, for God's sake… You're just imagining things.
It was just too quiet, and it was getting to her, again. That was the whole reason she'd jumped at the chance to hang out with Weller that evening, after all… to put off the inevitable return to the safe house, where it was much too quiet.
Well, that was part of the reason, anyway.
It was strange, how the same silence felt so different when she was alone than it did when she was with Weller…
Dwelling on it is not going to help, she reminded herself.
What do I do now? she wondered, trying to change the channel on her thoughts and ignoring the voice in her head that told her that having entire conversations with herself could not be normal. She wasn't hungry, having just had dinner. Still, she turned and walked back downstairs in the direction of the kitchen, though not for any reason other than the fact that she was already bored and anxious.
About halfway down the stairs, she stopped, feeling like she'd heard a faint noise again, but when she stood still and listened, she heard nothing. Not a sound. I really need some background noise in here, she thought, even though she knew absolutely nothing about TV shows or movies or music, and therefore wouldn't even know where to start with any of them. She wasn't all that interested in learning about them, either. Things like that just reminded her of how little she knew – about herself, about the world... about anything. At the bottom of the stairs she stopped again, her hand still on the banister – listening, but hearing nothing.
See? You're being paranoid, the voice in her head told her. She walked slowly through the first floor, leaving her jacket on the empty dining room table – because, well, why not? It wasn't as though she was going to sit and eat there. She tried not to let her thoughts go in that direction – the self-pitying one that dwelled on everything she had lost, which was basically everything, knowing that it would only make things worse. Though they barely made a sound, the almost inaudible tread of her footsteps against the floorboards somehow echoed far too loudly as she ambled toward the kitchen.
At first glance, her kitchen could easily have been mistaken for a room in an uninhabited house. It was that barren. There was no sign whatsoever that she'd been living there those past few days. Opening the refrigerator, she was faced with an absolute minimum of items: a pizza box – which, upon later inspection, she would find was actually empty – four other unmarked takeout containers, what appeared to be a ball of tinfoil that may or may not have actually had food inside it, and a few packets of some kind of sauce or others.
Even though she hadn't been hungry, the near emptiness of her refrigerator depressed her. It was like a metaphor for the emptiness of her life, right there in 3-D, as stupid as that sounded even to her. Suddenly she felt exhausted, and wanted nothing more than to climb into bed and end this day. Maybe when she woke up, she would discover that all this had been a terrible nightmare.
It hasn't worked so far, but hey, you never know, she thought sarcastically. Just being in her safe house seemed to drain the energy from her, and her good mood from earlier along with it. She closed the refrigerator and made her way back upstairs, hearing nothing but the deafening silence of the night and hating every single second of it.
Upstairs, she decided that a shower might help her relax away the tension that she felt just from being there in the silence. She turned on the shower and walked back out into her bedroom while the water began warming up, stepping out of her pants and tugging off her white t-shirt. She walked across the room to deposit the white t-shirt she'd just taken off into the hamper against the wall, still in her black sports bra and boy short style underwear. She hadn't heard a single sound, when, as she dropped her shirt into the hamper beside the wall, hands reached out of a doorway and grabbed her, setting her instantly into defensive mode.
What the hell was going on?
She'd already learned that she was not helpless when it came to defending herself, but even so, Jane found herself in the tight grip of whoever it was. The unknown man had one hand over her mouth, the other wrapped around her tightly. Despite her newly discovered fighting skills, somehow this man had immobilized her in seconds. She wondered fleetingly if she knew him from somewhere… she wondered this about just about every person she came in contact with, of course, so it was almost automatic by now. However, this man had known exactly what to do to keep her from moving, despite her skill set. Was that just a coincidence?
So far he hadn't hurt her, only surprised her, and she wondered if that meant anything. Try as she might to free herself, however, he held her tightly in front of him, so that she was unable to turn around and see his face. She was breathing heavily but she could still hear him whispering into her ear. "Don't – don't make a sound," he ordered her. "Now, I'm gonna take my hand away," he told her. However, he didn't get much farther in telling her his plan, because with what must have been only a slight reduction in his grip, Jane quickly had the upper hand. What followed was a fight that left a chair broken and Jane even more bruised than she had been, though in much better shape than her attacker, who she'd flipped onto his back, breaking said chair.
In the middle of the fight, she suddenly saw a black and white image of herself and the man, outdoors in the snowy woods. Though it lasted only a few seconds, it distracted her just enough for him to grab a piece of the broken chair and hit her with it, sending her diving to one side. They ended up standing several feet apart, staring at each other as he begged her to stop fighting him. Her response was to spit out a molar that had been knocked out of her mouth in the scuffle, her face not showing that it had caused any pain whatsoever. He insisted that he didn't want to hurt her, but that didn't stop her from lunging at him again almost immediately, each fighting the other off until finally Jane had him pinned up against a wall.
His next words surprised her, because she certainly hadn't expected him to say that he was there to help her, but that was exactly what he said. "How did you get in here?" she demanded.
His reply was cryptic, simply, "We avoid detection. It's part of our training." We who? her mind screamed. More black and white images flashed before her eyes, the last of which was Jane herself, though with longer hair and no visible tattoos, wrapping that same strange man's arm in a bandage. From the way she looked at his bandaged arm, it appeared that they not only knew each other, but cared about each other. Her voice was soft when she heard herself tell him that he would be fine, and then they smiled at each other.
Coming back to her senses, she realized that this man wasn't a stranger after all, and though she couldn't place him, she had known him at some point.
"I remember you," she told him.
"What?" he asked, looking truly shocked. "That's impossible."
Jane was really starting to get pissed off at that point. Hadn't she been through enough? Could she not expect to feel relatively safe in her own FBI safe house? And who was this man, what did he know about her and what the hell was he doing here?
"Who are you?" she demanded loudly. "Who am I?" The man promised to tell her if she let him go. Without warning she took several quick steps away from him, continuing to step back without taking her eyes off of him as he fought to catch his breath. He asked her if they had found the SEAL tattoo yet, but Jane wasn't giving this man the satisfaction of getting answers until she got some of her own.
"Who did this to me?" she asked him slowly. "Why did they send me to the FBI?"
"You can't trust them," the man told her, ignoring her questions and still breathing hard. Before he had a chance to say anything else, however, gunshots cut through her bedroom window, piercing the man's chest one after another until he fell to the ground. Jumping aside in surprise, she knelt over him quickly, aghast over this man who now lay dying in front of her without ever having given her a shred of information.
This can't be happening. He knows something. He knows me. He has to tell me something. Her mind was racing, but there was nothing she could do.
There was blood everywhere, and the man struggled to talk, but succeeded only in making a gurgling sound. In less than a minute, he was dead.
Unable to think about what she was doing, Jane scooted herself back against the nearest wall, pulling her legs up against her and hugging them tightly to her chest. She could feel herself shaking all over, and she couldn't seem to calm down. Stop it, she told herself, but it took a few minutes before her heart stopped hammering in her ears. Now think, what next? Where is your phone? She looked around the room frantically, not seeing it anywhere. Finally she realized that it was probably still in her jacket pocket.
On the dining room table. Downstairs.
Swearing under her breath, she told herself that she had no other choice but to go after it. You wandered around downstairs earlier, and nothing happened, she reminded herself. If anything, it may be safer downstairs because your detail is right outside the front door. At this point, that was of very little comfort, but she supposed that it was something. She didn't dare stand up again and leave herself exposed to the unknown shooter, if he or she happened to still be in position, so she scooted herself along the floor carefully, slowly getting up onto her hands and knees and trying to stay clear of the window through which the bullets had come as she crawled the rest of the way into the hall.
When she reached the stairs, she froze, straining to hear any noise whatsoever, whether inside or outside of the house. She heard a faraway engine and a few distant people's indistinct voices, but they both seemed to fade into quiet once again. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She crept down the stairs as slowly and quietly as she could, freezing in terror every time one of the stairs let out so much as a groan or a creak beneath her weight.
Having just made it off the stairs, she took one step towards the dining room when suddenly the front door came crashing in behind her without warning, the shock of which nearly caused her to fall over in surprise. She managed to catch herself on the trim of the stairs that stuck out where the wall and the stairs met. Turning around, ready to defend herself once again, she realized that it was Weller who had just come barreling into the house.
"Jane! Are you alright?" Jane noticed that Weller looked panicked as he flung himself through the door, but began to regain his usual composure when he saw her, only just having walked past the door herself.
She found that she couldn't speak. The relief that suddenly coursed through her veins was so overwhelming that she actually had to laugh, hanging on to the railing behind her for dear life as the adrenaline began to slowly seep out of her body. Weller swung the door closed behind him, and was in front of her in a few quick steps.
"Jane, you're… are you hurt?" He suddenly looked worried again.
Finally, she found her voice. "What? I… No. I… I don't think so. But that man, upstairs… He's… I couldn't… He grabbed me… But then… Oh, God…" She was having trouble speaking coherently and she knew it. It wasn't that Weller's presence made her tongue tied – far from it. If anything, she was far more comfortable when he was around than when he wasn't. It was more that now that he was there and she knew that she was safe, her mind was free to be traumatized from the shock of the strange and yet familiar man that had been in her safe house. The one who had just died right in front of her…
Weller watched as her face fell, the wheels once again clearly turning inside her head. He reached out and gently put his arm around her, guiding her through the dining room and into the kitchen, letting go of her in the doorway so that he could find a paper towel, running it briefly under the faucet to moisten it. She looked at him in confusion as he walked back towards her, still standing exactly where he'd left her in the doorway. He put his left hand on her right shoulder to keep her still and told her, "There's blood all over your face. I just want to wash it off." She just nodded, staring at him intently.
There's blood all over my face. His blood. Oh, God… Somehow, she held herself still.
She could see him in front of her, could see the paper towel moving toward her face, but even so, the cool, damp sensation she felt when it touched her skin was almost a surprise. Fighting the desire to back away from him, she forced herself to remain still, feeling his hand tighten ever so slightly on her right shoulder – not in the way the man upstairs had held onto her, as if to trap her, but in a way that held her steady. She wasn't afraid of Weller – of course not – or even of being that close to him… though she certainly did notice how close to her he was standing at that moment.
Feeling her flinch slightly in the second the paper towel touched her face, he tightened his hand on her shoulder just a little, in what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze. To say that she had been through a lot in the past 24 hours was quite the understatement. She'd already been through more than a lot before arriving at the safe house after their dinner. He dabbed at her forehead first, the paper towel quickly turning red with the blood of the unnamed man who now had the attention of a small team of FBI agents upstairs.
Moving the paper towel slowly over her skin, as gently as he could, it only took a few seconds before it began to smudge, instead of remove, the blood. Then he pulled back his hand, folded the paper towel and repeated the action, noting that she didn't tense the second time.
The second time she watched the paper towel coming closer to her face, it was almost as though it was in slow motion. Weller had folded it to get a clean section, but she could see red slowly soaking through the layers of white. Somehow she kept her breathing even, and held herself perfectly still, concentrating solely on his hand on her shoulder, trying to keep her eyes on his face and not the offending paper towel that was moving towards her. There was something in his eyes, something she couldn't understand…
Seeing that he was going to need more than just the one paper towel, he tossed the twice used one into the trash can sitting nearby and steered her slowly towards the sink, not taking his hand off of her shoulder. She couldn't help but be glad for the continuing contact. Her thoughts were rather scattered just then, and the warmth of his hand was helping keep her attention firmly in the present moment, and not allowing her to drift back into replaying what had happened upstairs, only a very short time before. As it was, even with Weller's hand on her shoulder, the images were trying to worm their way in front of her eyes, and it was taking immense concentration to keep them at bay.
To fight them off, she continued to focus on Weller, standing in front of her and cleaning the blood off of her face. She watched intently as paper towel after paper towel came away red from the blood, but finally, after wiping thoroughly across her face what felt like a hundred times, they finally came away from her face with no trace of red at all. Next, he ran his right hand under the water for a few seconds, then turned the water off and shook his hand over the sink, sending loose drops of water plinking against the metal. He squirted a small amount of liquid soap onto his fingertips, and she assumed that she was just cleaning off his hand. She expected his left hand to leave her shoulder at any moment to assist in this effort.
Instead, she watched his fingertips covered in soap come closer and closer to her face once again, the same way the paper towels had so many times already. He made contact with her skin and began rubbing the soap in tiny circles, the way she did when she washed her face at night. Her surprise must have shown on her face, because a faint smile crept across his.
"Just to be sure I didn't miss any," he told her, his voice just above a whisper. She nodded only a little, not wanting to deter his work, and mirrored his faint smile, continuing to focus on him. The motion was soothing, and she found herself calming down significantly as he worked. Too soon, he withdrew his hand, stood back just a little and studied her face before he was satisfied that it was scrubbed sufficiently, before slowly removing his hand from her shoulder and stepping out of the way so that she could turn and rinse her face in the sink. When she was finished, leaning over the sink as water dripped from it quickly, she realized that she hadn't considered what she would dry her face with.
"Here," Weller said from beside her, holding out several more clean paper towels. She looked at him and smiled once again, taking them silently and blotting the water from her face. Once she was finished, the paper towel having confirmed that there was no blood left on her face, she turned back to him for a final inspection, knowing that, as protective as he had proven to be, he would insist on doing so.
He looked satisfied with his work for a few seconds, and was about to speak when she asked him, "How did you know?"
"Your detail called me," he replied. "They said they heard gunshots. They were checking the perimeter and said that there were bullet holes in one of your upstairs windows. I told them to canvas the area, but not to come inside."
A look of amusement crossed her face. "You wanted to come and save me yourself?" she asked him playfully. "What if I'd been bleeding? What if I'd needed help?"
He blushed slightly, realizing that his reaction had been much riskier than he'd realized at the time. What if she had been hit and had bled out because he told her detail not to go inside? The thought hit him hard. He simply hadn't been able to stand the thought of anyone else being there and not doing enough for her. Enough? he thought, now confused. What the hell are you talking about, Weller? Are you the only one who can do enough for her?
She watched color tinge his cheeks and wondered if she'd been right, or which of her questions had caused that reaction. All of them? And then suddenly he looked pained, and she realized that she'd inadvertently hit a nerve. She'd wanted to tease him, not to make him feel guilty…
"Weller, I'm fine," she told him reassuringly. "Nothing happened to me." He nodded dumbly, wondering how much of that was simply good luck, or if the man had been the only target.
He looked at her slightly worriedly, and asked, "So, what happened, Jane? Did you know the guy?" Weller hadn't gone upstairs yet, but one of the other agents had come downstairs and given him a quick run-down of what they'd found while Jane had been rinsing the soap off of her face. He'd wanted to be 100% sure that Jane was okay before he went up there to see the scene for himself.
She took a deep breath, leaning back against the counter and crossing her arms in front of her, thinking back to what had happened upstairs.
"I was going to take a shower. I turned on the water, then walked out into the bedroom to walk to the hamper. He grabbed me when I was standing right in front of the hamper. He wanted…" She paused, remembering. "He wanted to talk to me, I guess, or so he tried to tell me. I flipped him on his back almost immediately and he landed on a wooden chair. Broke it to bits," she glanced up to see a hint of a smile on Weller's face at that piece of information, and at the fact that she'd said it as if it were no big deal.
Of course you did, thought Weller. She simply never ceased to amaze him.
"He kept telling me to stop fighting him, saying he didn't want to hurt me… but I wasn't going to give him the chance. I finally let go of him, and I asked him who he was… He wouldn't answer any of my questions. I don't know… And then all of a sudden someone shot him, through the window, and he collapsed. Before he could say anything else, he was dead."
She shook her head then, emotions welling up inside her. He told me not to trust them. Them.But who is them? The FBI? How can I nottrust them? They're the onlyones I trust… She was conflicted, and because she wasn't sure what to say, she stopped there.
As always, Jane's mix of being both strong and fragile at the same time fascinated Weller. The fragile side was dominant at the moment, causing him, as he always seemed to around Jane, to feel the need to comfort her. "Come and sit down," he told her, putting his hand on her back to steer her to the couch in the living room at the front of the house. She went with him willingly, curling herself up into a ball at one end of the well-worn couch.
He looked up at Zapata and Reade, who had just walked through the front door. "Zapata," he said, "Stay with Jane for a second. I need to check upstairs. Reade, with me." He'd chosen Zapata to stay with Jane, knowing Reade's current feelings about the new addition to their team, and not wanting Jane to have to deal with Reade's attitude on top of everything else just them.
Zapata sat down at the far end of the couch from Jane and tried to smile reassuringly. "Are you okay?" she asked hesitantly. Jane just nodded. Zapata's company was better than nothing, but it didn't have the calming effect that Weller's did. The female agent simply watched her, understanding that Jane didn't want to talk just then. Zapata looked around at the safe house. She'd been there before, for other assets.
How in the world did anyone break in here? she wondered. How that had happened would undoubtedly be gone over in excruciating detail in the very near future, she knew.
Several minutes later Weller's heavy footsteps came back down the stairs, carrying a small bundle. He nodded in thanks to Zapata, who walked up the stairs without a word to survey the scene along with Reade. Weller sat down in the middle of the couch, facing her, leaving space between the two of them, but not as much as Zapata had. Without a word, he handed her the bundle in his hand. When she unfolded it, she recognized it as a t-shirt and a pair of jeans. It was only then that she realized that she was sitting on the couch with Weller in her underwear.
She could feel herself blushing crimson as she sat up, her face suddenly feeling very hot as she leaned forward to hurriedly put on the t-shirt he'd handed her. Standing up quickly, she hazarded a split second glance at him, finding that his eyes were focused across the room, for which she was thankful. She pulled her jeans on in record time, wishing she could crawl into a hole then and there.
Yes, they'd found her naked in Times Square, and yes, they'd already scanned her naked body to catalog all of her tattoos, but still… she was somewhat mortified that she'd been standing there all that time in front of him in her underwear and not even noticed. To his credit, his eyes, as far as she'd noticed, had been on her face just the same way they always were… locked intently on her face, as a matter of fact. Such a gentleman, she thought.
Once she'd settled herself on the couch again and felt the flush in her cheeks gradually receding, she slowly forced herself to turn and look back at him. He gave her the same small, hesitant but intense smile that he gave her so often, the one that he never saw him give anyone but her. Their eyes stayed locked on each other for almost a minute, neither of them able – or wanting – to look away.
All too soon, however, his expression became serious. "It looks like you got very lucky tonight, despite everything."
Jane just nodded. She didn't feel lucky, but then again, she was alive. She was certainly luckier than the guy laying dead upstairs… Oh, God, she thought, trying to push the image out of her head yet again, and pursing her lips.
Weller's voice broke into her thoughts. "I'm not going to let this happen again, Jane. You're going to be moved to a new safe house. Immediately. Until we can arrange that," he paused, considering the limited options at that time of night. "The rest of the team is going back to headquarters to work on this. You're coming with us." She nodded feebly. It wasn't a question, but she had no objection to his order. Anything sounded better than being where she was, and anything sounded better than being alone at that particular moment. "That way, at least I know you're safe."
That last comment earned Weller a small smile from Jane, which surprised both of them. He pulled out his phone from his pocket, typed quickly for a moment, and then put it away again. "Let's go," he said, standing up. When she hesitated slightly, he held out a hand to her and waited. As awful as the evening had been since she'd gotten home, the look on his face now reminded her more of the earlier part of the night, the part that she wished she could have somehow captured and just lived in forever, at the restaurant. Slowly, she uncurled herself from the tight ball she'd pulled herself into, reaching up slowly and accepting Weller's help up off the couch. Could she have gotten up herself? Sure. But there was something nice about his attentiveness.
The two of them walked slowly to the door, and he motioned for her to go through the narrow opening first, just as he had at Chao's apartment. As he stood on the threshold, he turned and looked upstairs. At that moment, Zapata appeared at the top of the stairs. "Got your text. I'm on it. Reade and I've got this under control. We'll see you back at headquarters."
"Thanks," he said, nodding at her and turning to follow Jane out the door, closing it behind him. Outside, a small fleet of FBI vehicles had assembled. Weller walked toward one of numerous black SUVs, clicking the keyfab to unlock the doors, then opening the passenger side for her. She smiled faintly, settling in and then watching him as he finally closed her door and walked around to climb into the driver's side. As soon as he'd buckled his seatbelt, he pulled back out into traffic and they were on their way back to the FBI building.
All the way there, Weller kept glancing anxiously at Jane, trying to determine how she was doing. She seemed preoccupied, not speaking and mostly just staring into space. He couldn't help but think to himself that it was one of the few car rides they'd taken together where she hadn't fallen asleep against the window. He considered mentioning this to her, but taking another look at her, he decided against it. The look on her face told him that she didn't feel much like small talk just then. After the day she'd had, that was certainly understandable, nice dinner notwithstanding.
Once they were back at the FBI, Jane expected Weller to leave her to wait somewhere while he went back to work. Instead, he walked her to Mayfair's office, where they stood in the doorway as he knocked lightly on the open door. The fact that it was what regular people consider to be the middle of the night didn't seem to matter, as she was sitting at her desk, working away as though it had been the middle of the day. Do these people ever sleep? Jane wondered.
Mayfair looked up then, seeing the two of them. "Come in," she said seriously, motioning them toward two comfortable looking chairs in front of her desk. She looked at Jane first. "How are you feeling?" she asked.
Jane grimaced, wanting to tell the truth but not wanting to be overly dramatic. "I'm fine," she said. "I wasn't hurt." Mayfair gave her a knowing look. "Not physically, maybe, though from the look of you, you are at least a little bit worse for wear," she told the young woman in front of her. "If anything changes, you'll tell us?"
"Yes, I mean… I will," Jane replied nervously.
Mayfair nodded in satisfaction. "Agent Weller will put together the report. Anything you might remember, no matter how small, make sure you tell him," she told Jane, who just nodded, looking down. If she could gather coherent thoughts, she didn't mind telling Weller about them.
Don't trust them. The bearded man's voice was in her head again, but she pushed it away. Most of her thoughts, anyway.
Mayfair looked at Weller. "Get her settled, and when the rest of the team gets back, we'll meet in the screens room." Weller nodded, standing up.
"Yes, ma'am. Thank you," he said. Jane stood up as well, following Weller to the door. The two of them walked out into the hall, falling into step beside each other. Jane looked at the floor, but still kept up with Weller's longer strides down the hall. When they stopped, they were in the waiting area outside Dr. Borden's office, where there were several couches and chairs arranged into groups.
Jane looked up at him in surprise when she realized where they were. Weller shook his head quickly. "We're not here for Dr. Borden," he reassured her. "I just wanted somewhere you could rest. Preferably somewhere that you'd been before."
She nodded, already thinking that she was so exhausted, she could probably sleep anywhere at that moment. Sitting down on one of the couches, she turned and pulled her feet up, tucking her legs beside her as she laid her head down on the pillow at the end. Her eyes were droopy and he watched her, thinking that she was clearly almost ready to fall asleep. He nodded at her and then took a step away, only to see the calm look on her face become perplexed, worried even. Without saying a word, just smiling at her slightly, he stepped back in her direction and sat down in the chair that sat just beside the end of the couch where her head now rested.
"Will you please go to sleep?" he asked her quietly.
"You in a hurry to go somewhere?" she asked him with a yawn, that teasing look in her tired eyes once again.
"Funny," he replied. "More like, you're exhausted."
"Am not," she smiled, and closed her eyes. Maybe just for a minute. After all, Weller was beside her. Something occurred to her, and she opened her eyes again quickly, before sleep claimed her.
He saw her open her eyes with great effort, fighting sleep valiantly with a slightly worried expression. At that moment, he couldn't get over the force of the emotion he felt, though he wasn't quite sure exactly what emotion it was. Leaning forward in his chair and bringing himself closer to her, he told her in a low voice, "Jane, sleep. I'll stay right here until Zapata and Reade get back, and then I'll be in the screens room, not far away." The concern on her face seemed to be fading, but she still looked somewhat skeptical. "You're safe here. Okay?" he added.
Finally, he saw her face relax as she nodded slightly, snuggling into the pillow at the end of the couch and closing her eyes once again. Within less than a minute, her slow, even breathing told him that she was asleep. He knew that he couldn't sit there as long as she slept, but for the moment, he was glad that he could watch over her.
Maybe you should catch a quick nap, too, his mind suggested. It wasn't a bad idea, and the next closest couch was only a few feet away, facing the one that Jane was on. He stood up quietly, just watching her for a second, before walking the few feet to the other couch. Stretched out on it tiredly, he applauded himself on the very good decision. Truth be told, he was beat, but after years of practice he was just really good at convincing himself that he wasn't tired when they had a case.
He could feel his eyelids quickly getting heavy once he was horizontal, but that was okay with him. Someone would wake him when the rest of the team arrived, that much he knew for sure. As mesmerized as he was by Jane, watching her sleep was making him very tired as well. Finally, glancing at a sleeping Jane one more time, he stopped fighting it, and let his eyes fall closed.
