I don't own Blindspot or any of these amazing characters…
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"Can't we just hot wire some equipment or something?" Rich hissed over at Kurt.
"Not if we don't want to get caught," He replied.
"How are we supposed to get the casket out of the ground?" Rich demanded, "You know it's going to be in one of those crypt boxes that weigh a ton!"
"It's called a vault. That's what the pry bar is for," Jane explained as she shoveled another scoop of dirt out of the hole.
"Who cares what it's called!" Rich said in frustration, "I think you're totally missing the point!"
Kurt stopped shoveling and looked over at Rich. "Calm down. Do you want to go help Reid and Zapata finish digging their hole?"
"By myself?" Rich repeated, "I don't think so."
"You know," Keaton looked over at Kurt and Jane, "We're going to have a perfectly good hole here…we could just use it."
"I see what you're implying…very funny," Rich glared at Keaton's dark shadow.
Jane knew that Rich was wearing on everyone's nerves, but she was really grateful for the distraction. Last time she'd been the body in the coffin.
"Jane," Kurt urged her, "Why don't you take a break? We're getting low enough that too many people digging will only make things slower."
Jane knew he was right, but he was close enough to her to see that she wasn't the only one struggling with their current task. Last time Kurt had dug open a grave, he'd found her virtually dead.
"You okay?" She asked him softly.
Kurt's arm immediately went around her in comfort. "As long as I can look over and see you, I'm good."
Jane leaned up and kissed him gently, "There's no hurry."
He'd strained his back digging her out. She didn't want him to pull it again.
"No hurry?" Rich protested, "Have you ever seen Night of the Living Dead?"
"Their coming for you Barbara…" Keaton taunted with a line from the movie.
"Not funny," Rich protested looking around nervously.
Jane shook her head at their bantering and looked up into Kurt's shadowed expression. He could see her smile in the moonlight.
They shared their moment of levity before Kurt leaned down to steal a kiss before putting his shovel aside to help Jane out of the hole.
"Maybe I should get out too," Rich suggested hopefully.
"Keep digging," Keaton denied.
"I think this is going to ruin my shoes!" Rich insisted.
"Who wears loafers to dig out a grave?" Keaton demanded.
"We are digging out a grave and you take umbrage with my shoes? Really? My shoes are what's wrong with all of this?" Rich looked over at Keaton with a glare. It was lost on him in the darkness, but it made Rich feel better.
"What's taking you so long?" Tasha said as she and Reade joined them.
"We have Rich," Keaton reminded them.
"How are you done already?" Jane asked them.
"We made it a race," Reade said dryly.
Jane laughed at his pained explanation.
"Who won?" Jane asked.
"I did," Reade and Tasha said together.
"I see," Jane suppressed a smile.
"How did you win?" Tasha demanded aggressively.
"By letting you beat me, I won," Reade explained calmly.
"So you're saying you let me dig more than you on purpose?" Tasha was outraged.
"Don't answer that," Kurt warned Reade from inside the hole.
"Wouldn't dream of it," Reade agreed.
Suddenly there was the sound of the shovel hitting the vault.
"Bingo," Rich called out, "We have a winner."
The others moved over to look down into the grave.
"I'm out," Rich insisted.
Watching him try to climb out of the grave made Tasha and Jane share a look of amusement.
"A little help here," Rich held out his hand impatiently.
They each grabbed a hand and hauled him out.
"Why didn't Patterson come?" Rich complained.
"We needed someone to break us out of prison if we got caught," Reade said dryly.
"It's not like she's not in the cemetery," Tasha reminded him. Patterson was waiting in a van by the front gate.
"She's just all alone…" Jane taunted Rich.
"By now she's either dead or possessed…" Rich agreed with a shudder.
"You know," Tasha taunted him, "The whinny ones always go first…"
"How dare you?" Rich protested.
"Hand me the pry bar." Kurt looked over at Jane.
She lowered it down to him.
Keaton climbed out while Kurt worked on opening the vault. It wasn't easy, but finally he was able to force it open.
Jane reached down to take the bar while Kurt stepped to the side so that he could open the lid.
"Oh…look," Rich said in relief, "It's dry."
"That's the point of the vault," Tasha reminded him.
"Actually," Rich denied, "The vault is to prevent a cave in."
"You know this…how?" Reade almost didn't want to know.
"I've dug up a few graves," Rich said cryptically.
The team all stopped to look over at him.
"What?" He demanded, "You want details?"
"NO!" Was their emphatic response.
"Calm down," Rich held up his hands, "There weren't any bodies in the graves…well except for that one…"
"Rich," Jane protested.
"Everyone makes mistakes," Rich argued, "That old woman haunted me for like three months. It took a priest, some holy water and a voodoo priestess to get rid of her."
"A voodoo priestess?" Tasha repeated.
"Maybe she just put a spell on him to make him think he wasn't haunted anymore." Jane suggested.
"That's not funny," Rich protested looking around nervously.
"We need the straps," Kurt tried to stay focused, but it wasn't easy.
Jane quickly supplied them.
"Coming out," Kurt warned them after he secured the coffin.
Jane reached down to help him and before long they each hand one of the many straps Kurt had secured.
"This is going to take all of us," He warned them, "Rich I'm going to need you to stay focused."
"Trust me," Rich assured him, "Nobody wants out of here more than I do."
"On three," Kurt told them.
On the count they all began to strain to get the coffin out of the hole. Once it was sitting on the ground before them, Jane leaned over to catch her breath. It was heavier than she'd expected…
"You okay?" Kurt worried, his hand running over her back soothingly.
"Why was it so heavy?" Jane worried.
"Maybe he was a big man," Rich suggested.
"No," Tasha denied, "He wasn't."
"Maybe this is just a top of the line coffin?" Reade suggested.
"Somethings not right," Jane insisted to Kurt.
"You think he's not in there?" Kurt asked her.
"I think somethings in there," Jane assured him, "But I doubt it's her husband."
"What else could it be?" Tasha demanded.
"I don't know," Jane denied, "But it's too heavy. Since she killed him, it would be foolish to admit that to you and then leave the evidence right where you can find it."
"How do you know how heavy it should be?" Rich demanded.
"This isn't the first cemetery I've been in at night," Jane said bluntly.
"You weren't digging up bodies…" Rich said faintly, "Were you?"
"Yes," Jane said impatiently, "I was digging up bodies."
"To eat their brains?" Rich asked faintly, taking a careful step back.
Kurt knew.
"Leave it Rich," He warned him.
Jane knew that telling them the truth would be easier than all the speculation.
"Seals don't leave men behind," Jane explained, "I retrieved my Seal Team to take them back home. Nigel helped me."
Kurt pulled Jane against his chest protectively, as though he could somehow go back in time to comfort her. The funny thing was it worked. He was constantly protecting her from her own memories and she loved him for it.
"Oh," Rich was looking at Jane with a sympathetic expression. "I guess this is probably pretty hard on you then."
"You think?" Tasha said with tone.
"Enough," Kurt told them, "We need to figure out what to do now."
"We can't open the casket," Keaton insisted.
"We can't bury this one someplace if he isn't even in there." Tasha argued.
"We need to call Patterson," Kurt told them, "See if she can find anything that would tell us what's going on."
"On it," Rich agreed reaching for his phone.
While they waited Jane burrowed into Kurt's arms and rested her face in the crook of his neck. He kissed her forehead and rubbed her back gently.
"How's your back?" She asked him softly, her hand running over it as though she was checking for herself.
"It's going to be sore," He admitted, "But so is yours."
"You didn't restrain it?" She worried.
"No," He assured her, "Last time…my life was in that hole. This time we just have the threat of prison. I wasn't near as desperate."
Her arms tightened around him and she kissed his neck.
"What do you think is in there?" She asked him looking over at the casket.
"I don't know," Kurt admitted, "But whatever it is, I think we need to move it just to be safe."
"Agreed," Jane confirmed, "Just don't tell Rich yet."
Kurt laughed softly.
"We've got it," Rich announced less than enthusiastically.
"What is it?" Kurt asked him.
"Madeline Burke bought another plot in this same cemetery after her husband died." Rich explained, "This is their family plot. The other one is close, but unmarked."
"Let's move this one to Reade and Tasha's hole," Kurt suggested, "Then we need to dig another hole."
"Why take this one?" Rich argued, "Let's just leave it here!"
"We don't know what's in it," Jane reminded him.
"It's probably just cement or a manikin of Robert Wadlow…" Rich argued.
"What?" Jane was looking at him in confusion.
"Robert Wadlow was the world's tallest man," Reade explained, "And he wouldn't have fit in this size casket"
"Why do you know such lame ass crap?" Tasha asked Reade.
"All because you don't know it," Rich argued, "Doesn't mean its crap…"
"We're moving it," Kurt insisted cutting through the bickering.
By the time they lowered it into the hole that Reade and Tasha supplied they looked over at each other. "You think we can get a second one in there?" Tasha asked Reade.
"I'll make it fit," Rich argued.
"By what?" Reade asked him, "Standing on top of it and jumping up and down?"
"It'll fit," Jane assured them.
"Let's go get it," Kurt looked over to Rich, "Lead the way."
Once they were at the sight of the second grave they looked over to Rich and Keaton, "Go back and close up the first grave, we'll get this one."
"Close it?" Rich protested, "Why bother?"
"We don't want Madeline to know we stole her husband's body right away," Jane insisted, "They might be able to figure out where we put him and then all of this will have been for naught."
"The longer she remains in ignorance, the more likely any traces we leave behind will be gone." Kurt agreed.
"This is just getting better and better," Rich said as he stomped away.
"Barbara, they're coming for you…" They could hear Keaton taunting Rich as they walked away.
"I can use that perfectly good hole too," Rich warned Keaton, his voice getting fainter as they moved away, "Trust me nobody will have the energy to dig you back up after all of this."
Jane started to laugh. Standing in the dark, Kurt turned toward the sound and began digging with a smile on his face.
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Dawn was breaking before they climbed back into the van with Patterson.
"How'd it go?" She worried.
"How'd it go?" Rich repeated with a scowl, "How do you think it went?"
"It's done," Jane assured her, "That's all that matters."
Looking down at his ruined loafers Rich pouted.
"Did you see any ghosts?" Patterson tried to perk him up. Dejected Rich is just too pitiful.
"No," Rich denied, "The haunting will probably come when I fall into the exhausted heap later."
"You'll be fine," Jane assured him hastily.
"Oh," Rich scoffed, "Sure you have Weller to sleep with, he'll probably keep your ghosts away, the rest of us are on our own."
"He does keep my ghosts at bay," Jane admitted meeting Kurt's eyes. His arm came around her and she rested against him.
"You're missing the point!" Rich said without heat.
"I got you something…" Patterson said to Rich.
"Is this something I'm actually going to want?" He demanded, "It's not like a suicide mission or something is it?"
Patterson turned her computer around and showed him what was on the screen.
"Is that?" He couldn't finish his sentence.
"Those loafers you wanted two weeks ago," Patterson agreed.
"You said buying shoes was too risky," Rich reminded her.
"I told you not to wear those shoes," She chided him.
"You give me a treat only to slap me back down again!" He accused her.
Realizing I told you so was probably a little cruel at this point Patterson let it drop.
Tasha closed her eyes and let her head drop forward. She was beyond tired. Reade reached for her hand and she looked over at him with a smile. Leaning into him she rested her head on his shoulder.
Watching them from the close quarters of the cramped back seat Keaton leaned his head back with a little smile. He should have known that asking Tasha to lie to Reade was a stretch. It had almost cost them her life. In his experience any outside interference in the mission was too big a risk, but that was before he'd met this team. They could and did things regularly that would get most people killed and they trusted each other without reservation or judgement. He'd never met anyone like them. It was one of the reasons he'd turned his back on his life to help them. Even after the night they'd had, he didn't regret it. Some of the people he trusted the most in this world were in this car. How had that happened?
They arrived back at their hideout as the sun was brightening the sky.
Kurt looked at the door and his brow furrowed.
"Someone moved the wood." He warned the team. He'd place a board against their entrance as a warning.
Instantly the exhausted occupants of the van were on high alert.
"You think someone broke in?" Patterson worried.
"I don't know who or why," Kurt denied, "But someone has definitely been inside."
They stopped and as they pooled out of the van they began to fan out around the building.
Suddenly, the door burst open and Bethany came charging outside.
"Daddy! Mama Jane!" She screamed as her little legs closed the distance between them.
Kurt lowered his gun immediately and dropped to his knees. Jane joined him and Bethany plowed into the two of them at full steam. Allie appeared in the doorway with an indulgent expression.
"It's about time," She complained, "Bethany has been driving me crazy asking when you'd be back!"
Kurt looked up at Allie, "How did you know where we were?"
"Oh, please," Allie laughed, "This is what I do."
Bethany was raining kisses all over Janes face and she was returning the favor.
Kurt laughed and hoisted his little girl up into his arms.
"That's enough you two," He teased them.
"I think Daddy wants some too," Jane warned Bethany with a big smile.
Kurt felt the butterfly kisses and pulled his daughter more tightly against him. Throwing his arm around Jane he urged his family inside. Everything he needed held tightly within the circle of his arms.
