Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)

Kurt woke up a few hours later, and couldn't figure out why he was so cold.

The power's out. The heat is off. You're downstairs by the fireplace, and the fire probably went out, he told himself, all before he'd opened his eyes.

That's not it, the voice in his head kept insisting. There's something else that isn't right.

As he opened his eyes, he realized that the voice was right. Something was very, very wrong – he was in the sleeping bag by himself.

Where in the world is Jane? he thought frantically.

Suddenly, his vision tunneled to a narrow line, as a black and white image, the same one that had haunted his thoughts and his dreams for more than twenty-five years, came to life before his eyes. In this vision, he opened the door to Taylor's room, only to find that she was not in her bed, where he'd expected to find her. That was the night that she had gone missing, that his father had—

Get ahold of yourself, he insisted, that's not what's happening here. Jane is an adult. No one broke in here and kidnapped her from right under your nose.

He knew this, that it was only in his mind… but as usual, the vision refused to release him.

Half lying in the sleeping bag, half sitting up, he tried frantically to clear his mind. His breathing was uneven and his vision was still clouded to the point that no matter how he tried to break free, all he could see was that fuzzy, black and white scene from years ago… He saw himself, moving through Taylor's house with increasing concern… concern that turned to panic within minutes when he failed to find her in any of the logical places. Or the illogical places. Or her favorite hiding places. She was just… gone.

Even before he had given up looking, he had already known that she simply wasn't there. Not because of a bad feeling or because he saw a particular clue or anything like that, but because he knew her, and unless she was in danger, there was just no way Taylor would be hiding. The kid loved people too much to be hiding. She wanted to be front and center, in the middle of the action, all the time.

But it wasn't just that she would not have been hiding if she wasn't in danger. No, the biggest thing that had told him that something terrible had happened was that never – not in a million years – would she have hidden from him. Taylor was the girl who would beg to be allowed to stay up late and hang out with him, no matter what he was doing. Even if he was sitting at her dining room table doing his homework, silently writing out endless complicated math problems, she would have sat with him quietly, simply enjoying the chance to be near him, staring at him adoringly, as she had all of her life. He could have been watching paint dry, and Taylor would want to be right there beside him, watching with him. On the nights when her mom was at work, he had to work hard to convince her to go to bed, bribing her with story after story until her eyelids were heavy and she was too tired to argue, literally falling asleep against her will.

Most ten year told boys would have quickly tired of having a five year old girl as their shadow, but not Kurt. He'd never minded spending the extra time with her – far from it. She was the only person he knew, the only person he had ever known, who was so unfailingly devoted to him. Even his own mother hadn't loved him anywhere near that much, as far as he could tell. After all, by the time he was ten she'd been gone for years. She hadn't even loved him enough to stick around, much less to crave his attention and his presence. Then there was his father, who was distant and unpleasant on his very best days, and Sarah… well, she was his little sister, annoying him in the ways that a little sister was supposed to. Ways that for some reason, Taylor never did, even though she had been practically just as much of a sister to him as Sarah was.

No, if he'd been calling for Taylor in any tone of voice – with the exception of during a game of hide and seek, maybe – she would have come running, and probably crushed his legs in the tightest hug she could give. And with the increasing desperation in his voice, she would have been attached to his side, begging to know why he sounded so terrified.

But she hadn't been there. Not only that, he'd never seen her again.

At the time, his fear and panic had turned to terror, as he had come to realize that something terrible must have happened, and somehow without leaving a single trace. Each and every one of the subsequent thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of times that the scene had replayed in his head over the years had been worse than the previous one. Though it always seemed that it could never be worse, the next time always was. After that first time, since he knew the ending, the terror grabbed onto him from the first second and didn't let go. It was no wonder that he was still so haunted by that night. What was surprising was that he'd been able to function here, back in this place where it had all began, at all.

If not for Jane, I wouldn't have been able to, he reminded himself. This brought him back to the present once again, as he again attempted to break out of the spiral in which he was trapped.

Where is Jane? he thought desperately.

This time, for once, he was finally able to push the vision violently from his head. In all the years he'd been seeing it replay, this was the first time he'd ever been able to force it out. Normally it kept hold of him for hours, even after he stopped seeing the images – the pain in his heart would hold him prisoner for hour after agonizing hour. But not this time. No, this time he had to figure out what had happened to Jane. While rationally he knew that it wasn't the same, that it only felt the same, still he was going out of his mind with worry about where she could be, even before he'd been able to make himself stand up to begin looking.

You're being ridiculous, he told himself. She's probably in the bathroom.

But in the same way that he'd known that something terrible had happened to Taylor, he just knew that Jane wasn't in the bathroom. There was no stray flashlight beam from the hallway, no sound whatsoever to indicate that anyone or anything in the house was moving at all.

Where else would she be?

Finally sitting up all the way, he scanned the room. Nothing moved, and nothing was out of place. Everything was exactly the same, as far as he could see in the darkness – which wasn't much. Reaching for the flashlight, his hand found only an empty space on the rough brick hearth. It wasn't there! That was the only difference, besides the glaring absence of Jane. The flashlight was gone.

She had the flashlight with her – she must, he decided so he could look for the beam. This would help a lot… if she had it turned on. Scanning the room once more, he saw that the fire had nearly burned itself out.

As he stood up stiffly, wondering where in the world Jane would have gone, and slightly less urgently, why, he saw a tiny speck of light out of the corner of his eye. It didn't come from anywhere in the room, or from the next room or the hallway. It didn't come from anywhere in the house. The tiny beam of light that he saw flash quickly and then seem to disappear was… outside. In the backyard.

She's outside? In this weather? What is she thinking?

Maybe she's not thinking, he realized. Jane has more common sense than a lot of FBI agents he'd met in his career. If she was putting herself in that kind of danger – because the snow was still falling fast and hard, and he knew all too well that her boots alone weren't up to the challenge of that much snow, much less how her body would fare in the cold for who knew how long, then something was probably not right. If she was distraught enough to go outside in this, then what were the odds that she was dressed anywhere near warmly enough to be out there in the first place…? It all led him back to his original assessment of the situation: Something was very wrong.

Jane had woken up about thirty minutes before him, overwhelmed with panic. Honestly, she hadn't expected to have a nightmare as long as she was snuggled together with Kurt, but apparently even his proximity wasn't the guarantee of a peaceful few hours of sleep that she'd thought it was. If it had been, she wouldn't have been there, trying frantically to wake up from whatever dream she'd just had, even as she was nestled in bed with him, his arm draped loosely over her waist. Though it didn't make sense, she almost felt like she had betrayed him all over again by having had such a nightmare in his arms.

What are you even talking about? the voice in her head demanded, like her still not fully awake.

Her heart had been racing and she'd tried to remember what had just happened to make her feel so tense, so afraid. The pounding in her head had refused to subside, her breathing had refused to slow down, and she simply had to get out. Out of the sleeping bag, out of the room, out of the house.

There's a blizzardhappening outside, in case you haven't noticed, she'd tried to reason with herself.

But the voice in her head had no luck talking her down. Even as she was still attempting to process what she'd seen and felt – it had been so real , and so very terrifying - she'd pulled on her boots, the ones that had done so little against the snow the other times that she'd gone outside, and her jacket, which she hadn't even bothered to zip. Nothing else. No hat, no gloves, no scarf, no snow pants, and no concern about any of the things that she didn't have on. Really, it was a miracle that she'd stopped for the boots or the jacket.

For a reason that she wouldn't have been able to explain if she'd been asked, she felt pulled toward the back yard, and once she was there, she simply stared out into the snowy abyss, the house and all traces of civilization behind her, out of sight. She didn't even notice how the wind whipped the snow against her skin until it stung, didn't feel the cold that invaded her with her jacket unzipped, her head, neck and hands uncovered, and her legs protected only by the thin cotton of her pajama pants. Somehow, she felt none of it.

Pieces of her dream came back to her as she trudged through the snow. Taylor. I was Taylor. And yet I was watching her. I saw what happened to her… as it was happening to me. It didn't even make sense, and yet, that was the only way she could articulate it, even to herself.

Kurt had never told her exactly what happened to Taylor. Considering the deathbed confession that his father had made, there was really no way for him to ever know exactly what had happened to her, other than the fact that his father had killed her, and buried her in a place where she had always loved to be – was it where they'd gone camping? In any case, it didn't matter that she didn't have any other details. Her mind had supplied those in excruciating detail. After all, she'd seen and done enough horrific things in her lifetime, so imagining them was not a problem.

And you can't even remember most of them, the voice in her head had reminded her. Just imagine what else you've done.

It's what I deserve, she told herself pitifully. Taylor didn't deserve to die that way – the way she had, indeed just watched herself, aka Taylor, being killed – but I most certainly do.

Stop that, the voice in her head chided her angrily. Don't say that. You know that it isn't true. No one deserves to die that way, not even Remi. And you are not her. You're Jane.

Kurt would be proud of my inner voice for standing up for me that way, she thought sadly, suddenly realizing that this inner dialogue only showed how truly disturbed she had become.

Thinking of Kurt only made her heart ache more just then. Kurt… he shouldn't have to deal with the mess that is my mind, she thought in despair.

Stop it! the voice in her head was now screaming, but she pushed it back as far as she could, where she could barely hear it.

It was freezing outside, she knew this, but she felt none of it. At that moment, the cold that she didn't feel seemed like it might even be a good thing. Maybe the cold would calm her down somehow. Or… maybe that was what she deserved… as proof of just how distraught she was, this idea actually seemed logical.

Seriously, what the hell are you talking about? she heard the voice in the back of her head, where she'd pushed it, screaming at her in protest. You do not go outside in the middle of a blizzard, certainly not half dressed the way you are, for no good reason whatsoever! You just don't. No good can come of this! What exactly are you trying to prove, anyway?

What am I trying to prove? she wondered, her thoughts drifting for a minute as she was temporarily mesmerized by the falling snow around her.

And yet, she had done it anyway, gone outside in weather that would suggest to any logical person that that was the last thing you should do. Why?

Somehow, she felt closer to Taylor out there. Just then, that felt more important than anything, even her own well-being.

"We had a secret hiding place, in the woods," she remembered Kurt telling her a long time ago, back when he'd thought that she was Taylor. When they both had. "I thought that if you ever got away…" If she had ever gotten away. But she hadn't. She was dead. And she had been for a very, very long time.

Jane stared into the darkened woods, shining her flashlight towards the woods not too far from where she stood in Kurt's childhood backyard. Walking a little farther toward them, she wondered if she could find it. The hiding place.

This is not the time to go hunting for their childhood hiding place, the voice at the back of her mind shrieked, begging her to see reason. Turn around and go back inside RIGHT NOW.

Even though she knew the voice was right, that she should go back, that she shouldn't have been out there in the first place, still she stood at the edge of the woods, hesitating.

Kurt will never be able to find you if you wander into the woods, she told herself, appealing not to her logic, but her feelings for Kurt. Logic had failed to work, after all. The snow's falling too fast and too hard, and your tracks will be covered within minutes. You took the flashlight. Do you really want to go somewhere where he has no chance of finding you? What if died out here?

I deserve it, she thought miserably.

Whether you do or not is irrelevant, the voice shouted, not even attempting to appeal to her apparently nonresponsive instincts for self-preservation, instead framing the argument purely around Kurt. He does not deserve to go through life feeling like he failed someone else that he could have saved. Another person that he cares about. You know that he does.

That got her attention, the idea that if she simply disappeared, it would haunt him forever. As strong as the pull of Taylor was at that moment – which she still could not explain – the thought of hurting Kurt by hurting herself was the only thing that stopped her from walking further into the woods.

The cynical side of her recovered quickly from the blow, however. But he had a funny way of—

Enough! the other voice thundered in her head, finally breaking free from the corner she'd pushed it into. You promised both him and yourself that you weren't going back there, that you were done thinking like that. He's not perfect, and neither are you. None of this is going away. You can move past it, and you will, but take a second and remember that you don't want to do it by yourself. You never did. Now stop being so goddamn stubborn!

And so she stood there in the snow at the edge of the woods, staring into the trees, turning to stare into the darkness in the direction of Taylor's house for a minute, and then returning her attention to the woods.

What the hell is wrong with me? she wondered sadly, feeling tears freezing on her cheeks but making no moves to wipe them away.

Feeling both relief and worry at the same time after having located the flashlight beam behind the house, near the edge of the trees, Kurt hurriedly grabbed a few more logs, placing them as quickly and yet as carefully as he could in the fireplace and coaxing the flames back to life. He had a feeling that the fire was going to be an absolute necessity once the two of them got back inside, and besides, Sarah and Sawyer needed the heat in the meantime.

Stumbling towards the front door in the darkness as quickly and quietly as he could without the benefit of light, he had only two thoughts. The first, of course, was that he had to get Jane back inside as fast as possible. Who knew how long she'd been out there already, after all? The other thought that bounced around his head was why in the world is she outside in a snowstorm, in the dark, by herself, in the middle of the night? Jane was a very logical person, and he couldn't imagine what had driven her to make such a choice.

As much of a hurry as he was in, he took a few extra seconds and bundled up as thoroughly as possible. With no heat in the house, he certainly couldn't risk both of them ending up with hypothermia. He grabbed an extra pair of gloves, a hat and a scarf besides the ones he put on himself, shoving them as far into his pockets as they would go. After all, he knew her. He hadn't been able to see her well enough through the window, but he got the feeling that if she was distraught enough to go out there, then she was probably not thinking about dressing warmly. She'd never been very good about taking care of her own basic needs – she seemed to only care about making sure everyone else was alright, seeing herself as unnecessary.

Dammit Jane, he thought fervently. He was angry with her for putting herself in this kind of danger, and at the same time so very, very worried about her.

Charging outside, Kurt could immediately see how much more snow had fallen since the last time they'd been out there. The "path" around to the backyard through the snow that had been there before was nearly impassible now, and he found himself sinking deep into snowdrifts as he tried to make his way around the house. It had been deep before, but it was far deeper now, making walking quickly almost impossible. The wind whipped his face mercilessly as soon as he stepped away from the house, and his exposed skin already felt raw before he'd even gotten to the side yard. This did not bode well for Jane.

Again, he thought about Jane's short snow boots and how cold her feet and ankles alone must be. With renewed determination, he lumbered as quickly as he could around the corner toward the backyard, hoping against hope that she would be alright when he got to her. Luckily, a little bit of light reflected off the brightness of the snow, because otherwise the blackness of the night would have been complete. More snow continued to fall fast and hard around him, so that he could see almost nothing farther than a few feet ahead. All he could do was make his way toward the back edge of the yard, where he had seen the weak flashlight beam from inside the house. There were no tracks to follow, but depending how long ago she'd walked this way, they could easily have been filled in by the snow that was falling and blowing furiously.

Dammit, Jane, he mumbled again. His anger was quickly giving over to worry, panic and desperation. He couldn't remember feeling this level of fear since… well, since the night Taylor had gone missing. He stopped in his tracks for a second, feeling dizziness overtake him, but he refused to go back down that road. Not now, anyway.

No, Taylor was long since gone, but he could still help Jane. At least, he was fairly sure that he could. She needed him, he knew. She needed him to be there for her in general, whether or not she wanted to admit it, and she needed him now, at this exact second, to override her lapse in judgement and get her back to safety.

Right now, he almost yelled at himself. Now get moving!

Now suddenly aware of his surroundings once again, he pushed forward through the knee deep snow. Finally making his way around to the back of the house, for a second he thought he saw the faint beam of light through the torrent of snowflakes. He headed in the direction from which he'd seen that light as fast as he could, but it was slow going. Yet again, he shuddered to think how cold Jane must be. Minute after painfully long minute he pushed forward, determined to get to her and terrified of the condition in which he would find her.

Please be okay, he begged silently.

When he finally reached her after what felt like hours of trudging through the snow, he found her staring into the woods, not seeming to register when he repeatedly and loudly said her name, even though he was standing right beside her. He didn't have any better luck when he moved to stand directly in front of her. It was exactly as he'd expected – she hadn't barely taken the time to protect herself from the weather at all, even less so than he'd thought she would. As he'd also expected, something clearly had her distraught, which was the only possible reason why she'd be out there in weather like that in the first place.

He pulled off his own gloves, dropping them in the snow for the moment, and threaded his hands in her hair, shaking them hard, trying to dislodge as much of the snow from her head as he could, as quickly as he could. Of course, it was a losing battle, considering how hard the snow was falling from the sky, so he did this for only an intense few seconds before pulling the extra hat from his pocket and putting it on her head, knowing full well that whatever snow was already there would melt, and that she would end up soaking wet and freezing. Still, it was better than nothing, and the best he could do at that moment. Her jacket wasn't even zipped up, and he wasted no time in brushing as much of the snow from the front of her as he could before threading her zipper and pulling it to the top.

This whole time he was talking to her – or maybe he was more muttering loudly to himself. "Jane, what were you thinking? In the middle of the night? It's freezing out here…" He kept up a steady stream of words, even though it was unclear whether or not she even heard him. She didn't reply, as if she was in some sort of trance.

He wondered fleetingly if she was sleepwalking, but she'd at least taken the time to put on her jacket and her boots… he wasn't an expert, but he didn't think she would have even done that much if she'd been sleepwalking… or would she? He simply did not know, but he couldn't dwell on that just then.

Her jacket now closed securely, he wrapped the extra scarf around her neck and, one at a time, put the extra gloves on her hands. Looking down, he saw that she had nothing on her legs but her thin pajama pants, which made him shiver not from cold, but from fear. It was not nearly enough, and he had no idea how long she'd been out there. She didn't seem to even notice the cold. Besides the rest of it, he knew without a doubt that her short boots were undoubtedly full of snow, as they had ended up the other times they'd been outside, probably even more so. The two pairs of socks that she'd had on earlier didn't stand much of a chance against as much snow as he suspected her boots had already collected.

Still not having gotten a reaction out of her, only a blank stare, despite his many words, he decided to try once more before he took more drastic action to get her back inside.

He hadn't yet put his own gloves back on, despite the numbness he was beginning to feel in his fingers, but he shoved them into his now empty pockets lest they be covered in the snow before he realized it. Stepping closer to her, he put his hands on her cheeks, which he noticed in alarm were even colder than his hands, holding her face in front of his and attempting to get her to look at him.

"Jane," he said. "Please…" It had been his intention to say more, he knew that he needed to say more, but seeing her like this, his voice simply broke by his second word, and he found that he couldn't continue. But it was enough, because suddenly she focused on his face for the first time, and while the look she gave him was heartbreaking, at least she was looking at him.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice barely carrying above the sound of the wind that blew in their faces.

"We need to go back inside, right now. We can talk about this once you're warm," he insisted, leaving no room for argument. She nodded sadly, and once again thinking about her poor, frozen feet, he leaned down and, tucking his left arm against her back and his right arm under her knees, simply picked her up, carrying her in front of him. His first thought was how light she was, and he knew that that had a lot to do with her CIA confinement, and her failure to take care of herself since then. He'd ensured that she'd eaten in the past few days, but he also now knew that she hadn't been eating regularly in the months since she'd been back with the FBI.

And that that was partially his own fault, because he hadn't wanted to know… how she was doing, how she was feeling, what she was thinking… none of it. He'd been a first rate asshole and while, yes, he'd had his reasons for feeling betrayed – even valid ones – he'd put all of his energy into hating her, and she had suffered for it. And yes, they'd promised each other that they were past all that. But when it became so blatantly clear that she was undernourished because, in part, of his failure to act like even a decent human being, to say nothing of a friend… it was hard to swallow.

She was disoriented by the surprise of being lifted off the ground, and she struggled for a few seconds. Once she realized what he was doing, however, her panic subsided to merely an annoyed protest.

"Hey, Kurt, put me down! I'm fine… I can walk!" She looked frantically from side to side, trying to figure out a way to get out of this hold he had around her. Normally, she probably could have done so easily, but she wasn't quite operating at 100% just then.

"You know what? You really are a piece of work," he told her. "Just for once, can you just relax and let someone try to help you?" His words came out with great effort as he carried her through the deep snow, the wind still stinging their faces mercilessly. Realizing that struggling was both useless and only making things more difficult for him, and that he was stubbornly not going to let go of her, she relaxed and simply looked up at him sheepishly.

What the hell was I thinking? she wondered. And what must he be thinking of me for going outside in a snowstorm in the middle of the night, especially when we have no heat and no real way to warm back up? What kind of idiot am I, anyway?

Suddenly she had the urge to crawl into a hole and hide, not wanting him to see her shame or the misery that had led her outside in the first place. However, he was still carrying her, and the only way to hide her face, ironically, was to bury it against his chest – which she did. She was suddenly freezing, feeling the cold for the first time, and only now realized that she was shaking.

As they rounded the front of the house, she felt his face press against the top of her head, and her breath caught in her throat. Hadn't Kurt been through enough, not just this weekend, but just in general? Why in the world was she making this whole experience this much harder for him? She found that she had no answers to explain her behavior, only more questions about why she'd acted so stupidly. Her eyes were squeezed shut against not just the snow and the cold wind but the reality of what she could now only see as her thoughtlessness.

Kurt somehow managed to get the front door open without putting her down, turning to maneuver them through the doorway and then quickly closing the door behind them against the continuing snow. While he knew that the house was uncomfortably cold, at that minute it felt infinitely warmer just because of the lack of wind and blowing snow. He leaned against the inside of the door for a few seconds, still holding her tightly, as they both breathed a sigh of relief before the next flurry of activity began.

However, time was of the essence now, he knew, because all the snow that was on them would start melting quickly, albeit more slowly than it would have had the heat been on. Still, all he knew was that he had to be sure that Jane was alright. After setting her down on her feet gently, he ripped his own gear off and threw it in a pile in the corner, so that he could more easily help her.

Under her hat, which he pulled off of her head, her hair was, as expected, now soaking wet. This would certainly not help with her getting warm, he thought ruefully. He pulled off her gloves and scarf as fast as he could, throwing them behind him with his own, then directed her to sit at the bottom of the stairs. Somehow he was able to ignore the thousands of different and yet similar images of a young Taylor sitting at the bottom of the stairs for various reasons, most of them shoe or boot related, as he pulled off her boots to find that she'd brought in even more snow inside them than he'd imagined. He stripped off her snow covered socks, feeling her feet since he could see them well enough to determine anything, despite the fact that she still held onto the flashlight and tried to shine it where it would be useful to him.

Unable to be sure of anything, he quickly pulled the socks off of his own feet – since his boots had not been full of snow and his socks were therefore both warm and dry – and put them on hers. Surely at a moment like this, the possible weirdness of such a gesture would be overlooked, if she even thought of it at all. He took off his own sweatshirt and then carefully pulled the one she had been wearing over her head, since the front of it had been covered in snow where her jacket had been unzipped, and it was now soaked and freezing. He put his sweatshirt on her and then, hating to have to leave her even for a second, hesitated as he looked at her with concern, crouching in front of her.

His hands went to her shoulders, and their eyes locked on each other. "I'm going to run upstairs and get you some dry pants, and socks, okay? I'll be right back," he promised. She nodded, still looking shell shocked, and simply handed him the flashlight, and then watched as he took the stairs two at a time. While he was up there he also grabbed a towel from the hall closet, another sweatshirt and more of his socks as well, in addition to the items he'd promised her.

Jane sat at the bottom of the stairs, feeling herself shivering from both the cold and from the dream that she couldn't keep reliving, somehow, without even really being able to rememberthe details of it any longer. The terrified feeling that it gave her was more what she was remembering, and the fact that she knew that, in her dream, she had been Taylor when Bill Weller had killed her. Understandably, she couldn't seem to shake the feeling of terror.

What felt like an excruciatingly long time later, though it was actually less than two minutes, Kurt was back by her side again, a bundle of clothes under his arm.

He found her still sitting at the bottom of the stairs, hunching into herself as if she was trying to tuck herself into a ball and disappear. She was now visibly shaking, and he knew that he had to act fast. The first order of business was her pajama pants, which were already nearly soaked.

"Jane, hey," he whispered soothingly. "Can you stand up? I brought you some sweatpants to change into," he held them out to her, ready to steer her to the hallway bathroom not far away. Jane, however, was clearly not her normal self-conscious self, because she simply took the sweatpants from him and stood up, pushing the cold, wet pajamas off of her and stepping into the dry pair.

Kurt tried to avert his eyes, but it had almost happened too fast for him to do so. Even in the near complete darkness, he hadn't been able to help but notice that some of the tattoos on her legs looked different, and he had a feeling that that was thanks to the CIA, just like the scars on her back. The thought made him cringe. Any thought of anyone hurting her made him cringe.

She turned back around and looked at him, and he stepped closer to her, wanting to put an arm around her shoulders but not sure of her mental state, or whether that was something she would welcome just then. He settled for putting his left hand gently at the base of her neck as he steered her back towards the family room, leaving their wet things to be dealt with later. She was still shivering, and he needed to get her near the fire as soon as possible.

Sarah and Sawyer were, thankfully, still asleep when they approached the fireplace, and Kurt quickly pulled the blankets out of their sleeping bag, directing her to sit down on top of it at the end closest to the fire, then wrapped the blankets around her tightly.

He sat down beside her, setting down everything he was holding except the towel, and then rubbing her hair as gently as he could while also trying to get it dry.

As her rubbed the towel against her head to dry her hair, she couldn't help but think about how sweet a gesture it was. Yes, he'd done quite a few other things for her in the past few minutes, not least of them carrying her inside and helping her avoid frostbite and hypothermia. For some reason, however, it was the fact that he was sitting beside her, trying to dry her hair, that made her heart ache. She had caused him so much worry, and he was being nothing but gentle with her.

"I know that Sarah does this thing with the towel where she wraps it around her head, when her hair's wet… I don't know how she does it though. Sorry," he mumbled apologetically. It may have been a trick of the light, but he thought he almost saw a smile on her face then, as she leaned forward slightly, putting her hands up to her head and doing exactly the wrapping thing that he'd been thinking of on her own hair. Apparently it was just something that women knew how to do.

That taken care of, he leaned back slightly so that he was sitting close to her but not quite touching her, watching her carefully and unsure what to do next. Her knees were folded in front of her, her arms wrapped around them tightly, which he could see because of how tightly she held the blankets around herself. Her face was illuminated by the glow of the fire that was not even a few feet away and slightly to the right. Turning his body to face her, so that the fire was now on his right, he watched as she stared into the flames and continued to shiver. He couldn't help but wonder if it was from the cold, from whatever was happening in her head, or a combination of both.

Probably both, he thought.

Now that he could see her face in the glow of the flames, he saw the tracks down her cheeks that had been left by tears, probably when she was outside. Watching helplessly, he knew that he needed to do something.

"Hey, are you still cold?" he asked, deciding that it was a stupid question the second it left his lips. She certainly looked like she was cold, after all. Turning to look at him slowly, she nodded just enough for him to see the motion, as if most of her energy was going into either getting warm, or dealing with whatever was happening in her head, or maybe both just then, and she couldn't spare any more.

You're an idiot, Weller, he told himself, remembering the issue of body heat in this type of situation. It wasn't quite as dire as when they'd been in the car and he'd come back inside freezing, since they did have the fire this time, but it was the same idea.

"Jane, come here, let's try something else to warm you up faster," he whispered. Managing to get one end of the blanket from her fist, where she had been holding both ends tightly, he pulled the blanket off of her right shoulder, causing her to shudder violently when the cold air hit her. "Shhhh, I'm sorry," he mumbled. She was already pulled tightly into a ball, so it wasn't too hard to lift her up and set her in his lap, finding the blanket behind his back and then pulling it the rest of the way around both of them securely, high enough up so that it covered half of her face. He turned back to face the fire once again, thankful that they had this heat source this time.

He couldn't tell if she was shaking more now, or if he could just feel it better, since he was hugging her against him, her let side pressed tightly against his chest. Without even realizing it, he rocked slowly back and forth, murmuring softly near her ear, or as close as he could get, attempting to sooth her, but to do it quietly enough that no one else woke up. He didn't feel like launching into an explanation of what had happened just then, and Sarah would undoubtedly have a million questions, possibly more.

Sitting under the blanket together seemed to do the trick, because within a few minutes he already felt her shaking lessen as she began to relax into him, no longer wound up in a tight little ball.

"Hey," he whispered, "does anything hurt? Can you feel all of your fingers and toes?" He felt her breath on his cheek as she almost chuckled at the question, then nodded against him, rubbing her temple against the stubble on his face.

"Yeah," she said in barely a whisper. "I think so."

"Which one is it?" he asked. "Yes? Or I think so?" When she didn't answer immediately, he added, "This is important, Jane. How long were you out there, anyway? You could have frostbite."

She inhaled a slow, shaky breath. "I don't know how long it was," she whispered. "It just…" He couldn't see her face just then, but he felt her shudder against him, and he pulled her tighter. Taking both ends of the blanket in his left hand, he glanced down in front of them, locating one of her hands then taking it gently in his right.

"Okay, so let's be sure we have all fingers and toes accounted her," he said. When she turned her head up towards him enough that he could see the skeptical look on her face, he just shook his head at her. "You're not getting out of it," he told her. "Start counting when you feel me squeeze your finger." She sighed, and she wanted to be slightly annoyed, except that she knew he was doing what he was doing out of an excess of concern, and that he was doing it because she had been stupid enough to go outside in a blizzard more than just a little bit inadequately dressed. He was worried about her. After only a few days, she still wasn't used to having someone who was worried about her.

As annoyed as she wanted to be, she realized that she liked it.

She felt him wrap his fingers gently around her thumb, hardly exerting enough pressure for it to be considered a squeeze. "One," she whispered. As he moved on to each of her fingers, and she counted obligingly, she couldn't get over how gentle he was. He'd held her hand before, of course, but this was different. Her feeling of panic was quickly being replaced with a feeling of calm, thanks to what he was doing.

"Toes now," he said into her ear when he had assured himself that she could feel all of her fingers. When she sighed heavily, wondering if it was really necessary, though not actually saying anything, he leaned down once more and said, "When you wander out in the snow in the middle of the night in a storm, you lose the right to complain about someone fussing over you because you scared the hell out of them." His voice was stern, but once again, under the tone of annoyance, she heard it loud and clear. He'd been worried about her.

He cares.

It made her slightly panicky and simultaneously relaxed to think that it could be possible, even after all the different ways that he had already showed her that he did in the past few days. "Now lift your foot up here," he told her gently, and yet in a voice that said that he was not taking 'no' for an answer.

Shifting until she was basically sitting cross-legged in his lap, she was surprised when he pulled the sock off of her left foot – the sock that had been his to start with. "And no, I'm not taking these off of you because they were my socks and I want it back, or something like that," he chuckled into her ear, "I need to make sure everything feels normal, so I don't want any socks in the way of that." She simply nodded against him again, having already resigned herself to his overzealous protectiveness – which she was finding that she didn't hate. No, she didn't mind at all.

Quite the opposite, actually. Was that a hint of a smile that she felt on her face?

It's almost like a foot massage, the voice in her head commented, and she felt the corners of her lips creep slightly higher still.

I don't remember those, she told the voice, but if this is what that feels like… well, it actually feels kind of cool… I think I might like that.

After Jane had dutifully counted her not-frozen toes for him, Kurt seemed to relax, though he still held onto her tightly. He reached an arm outside their cocoon of blankets, and she shivered when she felt a rush of cold air, "Sorry," he breathed beside her ear, "I had to get you a pair of your own dry socks. They'll fit better than mine."

"And smell better too, I bet," she whispered, and felt the rumble of laughter spread from his chest all the way through her seconds later.

It was a relief to him when she made a joke. Not only did she not seem to have frostbite, and she had now stopped shaking, but she was also acting more like herself. To say that he'd been worried when he'd found her outside was an understatement. A big one. Only now could he finally breath easily again.

He bent down to kiss the top of her head, the towel having been discarded a little while before, after doing its job. Her hair was still damp, but no longer soaking wet.

She felt the kiss on top of her head, and she noticed that his face stayed pressed against her hair. Any second now, he was going to remove it and sit back up, she knew, but she was surprised when he just… didn't. After a few minutes, she started to wonder if she should be worried.

You scared the hell out of him, the voice in her head reminded her. You're not seriously going to tell me that you don't know how much he cares about you, are you?

No, she thought, now feeling guilt creeping into her mind from all directions. It was a horrible feeling, to know that she'd worried him so much, even if she hadn't done it on purpose. They would talk about it, she knew. If he didn't bring it up, she promised herself that she would. But not yet. Right now, more than anything, she just needed… this.