Author's Note: Hi, again! Now that I've tied up the Borden loose end, time for a couple more. Thanks for reading along! :)
Kurt let himself out of the observation area of the Zero Division cell with relief. Its new occupant—Shepherd—was considerably less palatable company than Borden, and though he was still determined to keep her imprisonment from becoming solitary confinement, it made him wish his moral compass was a little less true.
Shepherd had remained silent for the entire hour, but her scrutiny had been deafening. Every time he'd looked up from his paperwork, she'd been watching him, her expression calculating. Once, he'd snapped, asking her gruffly if she had something she wanted to say, and she'd just shrugged and smiled.
His future mother-in-law—assuming Jane had been serious about him asking her to marry him again—was one of the most unnerving people Kurt had ever met. And she probably knew it.
Jane was sitting at her Zero Division desk when he entered the main room, her body noticeably tense. As he approached, she didn't look up from her screen.
"Hey," he said gently.
"I found her. The woman I killed."
Kurt pulled up a chair beside her, his heart sinking at the image of the blonde woman on the screen. "The woman Shepherd made you kill."
"I don't know," she murmured, leaning back in her seat and crossing her arms over her stomach. "Maybe there was something else I could have done—"
"No." He rested his hand on the back of her neck, rubbing gently. She sighed, at last turning her guilt-stricken face away from the image included with the missing persons report.
"You weren't there; you didn't see—"
"But I know you. There wasn't any other option, Jane." He held her gaze, willing her to believe what he already knew in his heart.
She nodded, the distress fading from her expression just a little.
Kurt looked over the file. The woman's name was Marie Morris. She'd been thirty-three years old.
"She had two kids, Kurt. Six and eight years old. I took their mom from them." Jane's remorse was so palpable that he felt it in his own gut. "She was just picking berries to help feed them, and I killed her for it. The missing persons report was filed by the kids' grandmother—I don't know if their dad is even around, or…"
"You can't do this to yourself, Jane. It wasn't your fault."
His words didn't seem to sink in. "Maybe I could do something for them. Something to make their lives easier. Pay for their college tuition or something…"
Sorrow heavy in his chest, he shook his head. He'd have to step carefully. "Jane, you can't."
"But their family will struggle to pay for it with only one parent saving. I don't have much, but I could make it easier."
"To them, you're going to be the person who took their mom away. They're not gonna care that you were forced to it, or that you'd give anything to undo it. Money won't make that loss any easier."
Jane's expression was almost pleading, and he could imagine her thoughts: Just let me atone for this.
"Maybe I could do it anonymously, so they wouldn't have to know it was me."
"You mean, like Shepherd did for me?"
Jane recoiled as though he'd slapped her, and he immediately regretted the instinctive words. Damn it, Weller.
"I can't believe you're comparing me to her." She got up abruptly, stepping out of his reach before turning on him. "This is not the same, Kurt!"
"I know. I'm sorry. I didn't mean— Jane, I know your intentions are good. But they won't care. You'll just be making your guilt their problem."
She opened her mouth to refute his claim, but he could see the truth of his words hit home. The anger drained from her, laying her emotional exhaustion bare. "I'm gonna go see if Patterson needs some help."
As she walked towards the door, her gait defeated, he tried to find the words to fix what he'd broken. But the voice in his mind that always sounded like Mayfair told him, Let her go. She needs time.
He'd rarely stepped wrong after listening to his mental Mayfair, so he turned to the screen instead of going after Jane, jotting down the details of the missing persons report. Marie Morris' family needed to be notified of her death, and as one of the leaders of the taskforce, he felt duty-bound to do it himself—today, and in person.
It would be difficult to face their condemnation and grief, but he knew Jane would appreciate it. This would be his own atonement—for letting his thoughtless words wound her, and for not being able to solve the case before Jane had been pushed into ending Morris' life.
The door to Zero Division opened, and Nas walked in, looking concerned. "I just saw Jane in the corridor, and she didn't look good."
"She just needs some space." Kurt took a last glance at the screen, confirming the details he'd written down, then stood up. "You and me, we need to take a drive."
Patterson looked up from the white board she'd been scribbling on as Jane entered the lab. "Hey! This is like Christmas. I'm having to use so much self-restraint right now, you have no idea."
Jane pulled her thoughts away from Marie Morris, unable to help smiling at Patterson's cheerful demeanour. She'd cried out her frustration with Kurt in the bathroom, hating how much she'd overreacted to his words, but also that he'd said them in the first place.
Her therapy sessions couldn't start soon enough—she just needed to feel sane again. She'd spent the morning choosing a new therapist, and though she was reluctant to put her trust in someone after what had happened with Borden, she couldn't stand feeling at the mercy of her emotions. Keeping everything inside wouldn't help her regain control of her life.
She focused on Patterson. "I don't have many Christmas memories, but none of them involved huge stacks of paperwork."
"Mine either, but if someone dumped all this on me on Christmas morning, I would have a field day." As Jane drew closer, she could pinpoint the exact moment her friend noticed she'd been crying, but to her credit, she didn't ask the obvious question.
Jane wasn't okay—but she was working on it. Patterson seemed to understand that.
"This is from the boxes Shepherd had me sorting, right? If you're gonna tell me you need help going through this…"
"No, you did a great job first time round, I promise." Patterson opened another box, took out a folder, and pulled out the front sheet, showing a sketched image of Jane's bull tattoo. "Damn, we already solved this one. Twice."
Jane sat down on a nearby stool. "You don't need to solve any more. All the corruption, all the evidence—it's right here."
"I know! But when I get a free second—not on the government's dime, just in case Hirst is hiding around the corner, listening—I can reverse-solve the tattoos we didn't already solve. Find out the clues I missed."
"Or you could just ask Roman. He did most of the puzzle-building."
Patterson dropped the file back into the box. "He did? Please tell me I can talk to him about that, one day."
Jane tried not to laugh at her eagerness. "He'll probably be pretty bored after a couple of days in bed. You can visit then, assuming he's okay with strangers sitting by his bedside."
"Yeah, maybe I should give the poor guy a few weeks to get over the whole nearly-dying thing. And I still want to reverse-solve them myself, I just… His brain must be amazing, to come up with all those intricate puzzles. How long did it take him?"
"I don't remember. The ZIP knocked most of that part of my life out." Jane frowned as her new phone began to vibrate, and pulled it out to find an unexpected name on the caller ID. "Sorry, I just want to take this, then I'll be back to do whatever you need my help with."
"Sure, take your time," Patterson said, already taking another folder out of the box.
Jane headed out into the hallway, hitting the answer button on her screen. "Kalina, hey."
"'Hey'? Don't you 'hey' me, Jane! I've been worrying about you for weeks! First, Kurt said he didn't know when you'd be available to talk again. Then, I started to worry that I'd upset you, that you didn't want to talk to me anymore, so he deigned to tell me you'd been kidnapped. Now, this morning, he gets around to telling me you were on an undercover mission, and you've been home for two days already!"
Jane winced at the tirade of Russian scolding, leaning against the wall. "I'm so sorry. Everything has been so crazy since I got home, I just…" I forgot normal life existed.
"I understand. But don't ever do that again!" Kalina chided.
"I'll really try not to. It all happened so fast—and I couldn't tell you I wasn't really being kidnapped, because I didn't know if the people I was going undercover with were monitoring you."
Kalina was quiet for a moment. "Is the danger gone? No one might be watching me anymore?"
"No, you're good. Don't worry about that." Jane stood up straighter as a couple of other agents passed by. "I'm at work right now, and tonight I'm gonna be pretty busy, but can I maybe call you tomorrow night, so we can have a proper catch up?"
Her friend sighed, but Jane heard a smile in her words. "Fine. Tomorrow. But don't you dare text me and say that you're too busy. I'm glad you're safe."
After a few more friendly exchanges, Jane hung up, feeling a little more reconnected to her pre-mission life. It would be good to hear how her friend was doing, and how the motel was faring now. Last time she had spoken to Kalina, she'd been full of plans for improving the business, and excited at the possibility of a couple of new friendships, now that her husband wasn't around to object to her having a social life.
Maybe Kurt and I can even go back to visit in a month or two, when everything gets a little more settled at work. Kurt could see his family, too.
Thinking of Kurt dampened her exuberance a little, as her mind jumped back to Marie Morris' missing persons file, and the argument they'd had over it. Jane pushed aside her discomfort and headed back into Patterson's domain, hoping to distract herself with work.
"By the way, thank you so much for stopping me from doing those shots last night. I really couldn't have handled today with a hangover as bad as it would have been." Patterson shot her a slightly embarrassed look as she approached.
"Don't worry about it. Tasha still wants to get Nas drunk, right? Maybe we can save the shots for then." Something told Jane that Patterson would need a few more girls' nights to bleed the poison from Borden's betrayal. It hurt that she'd been away for so long, unable to support her friend as she suffered.
Patterson didn't seem to be dwelling on Borden this afternoon, at least. She grinned at Jane. "Count on it. But for now, I was hoping you might know the key to some of these ciphers…"
Author's Note: I hope no one hates me too much for making Jeller argue so soon after Jane's return. I promise they'll make up very thoroughly before they bring Roman home!