Author's Note: Is this going on too long? *grin* I really am getting Jane out of there as quick as I can... sort of!

Jane carefully braided the newest fibres from her grey prison scrubs into the rope she'd been working on since the first day she'd arrived. It was painstaking work. Some days, the rough synthetic fibres snapped during the knotting and weaving processes, leaving her frustrated and lacking progress. Still, her captors didn't seem to have noticed the fraying around the various hems of the clothing she wore. It helped that it was so poorly made that the inside seams had a lot of uneven overlap, meaning that she could take a lot of threads at once from one invisible area.

They took her clothes every few days and blasted her naked body with a high-pressure hose before giving her a clean outfit. 'Giving her a shower', they called it. Jane was pretty sure sandpaper would hurt less, and the indignity of having to stand in front of three male enemies, nude and exposed…that chafed even more than the water. But at least she felt a little cleaner after these so-called showers, and there was always a chance she'd get a new set of scrubs with a fresh wealth of threads to harvest for her rope.

She'd already attached the makeshift cord to the drain cover, hiding her work by guiding it down the spout. So far, no one had commented on the small signs of wear and tear in her clothing; maybe previous prisoners had picked their scrubs apart just for something to do.

Another week, maybe two, and she'd have a long enough rope to wield her makeshift mace effectively. Possessing a secret weapon gave her back a sense of power that she'd lacked when she'd first been thrown in here. It gave her hope.

What worried her was how deconditioned she was. She'd worked out almost every day since she'd woken up in Times Square, taking comfort in how well her body functioned, even if her mind had let her down. That had changed once she'd gotten to the black site. They'd tortured her every day, resorting to electrocution and waterboarding when her body got too broken from beatings, but only to allow her to heal a little so they could do it all over again. She hadn't been able to work out, worried that she'd tear a ligament or give herself nerve damage. If she was going to escape from here, she'd have to pick her moment carefully, and if she hobbled herself through stubbornly trying to keep in top fighting shape, she'd have no chance.

Jane finished up her crafting project for the day, replacing the drain cover to hide the rope beneath. Then, wincing, she felt along the lengths of her pinkie fingers one at a time. One of the first things her tormentors had done was to snap them both, and she'd been trying to keep them straightened ever since, hoping they'd heal cleanly. They were still painful and a little swollen, but the worst seemed to be past. If Jake and his merry band of torturers didn't re-break them, she'd even be able to close her fists all the way when it became time for her to escape.

Speak of the devil…

Jake opened the door to her cell and stepped inside, cautious as always. He didn't underestimate her the way the others did, which made him far more dangerous.

He put a bowl of slop down on the floor beside her—some kind of cold stew from a can? Dubious nutritional value—but instead of leaving, he leaned against the door and watched her.

Ignoring the food, Jane stared up at him. "Forgot your thumbscrews?"

He actually smiled at her sour joke. "I thought we could have a civilised heart-to-heart."

"Great. I'll start. Do you like your job? Do you get a lot of satisfaction from it?" There was no way she was getting chummy with one of her torturers.

Jake sighed. "Do you have family, Jane?"

Jane shrugged. "If I do, I can't remember them." I thought the team were my new family. I was wrong.

"I don't enjoy this part of my job. But I would do all of this and more, twenty-four hours a day, if it meant protecting the people I care about from people like you. Sometimes the monsters don't play by our rules, so I have to play by theirs."

"And what, exactly, makes you think that I'm a monster? Over the past few months I have helped to avert terrorist attacks. The intel in my tattoos has prevented chemical attacks, explosive attacks…hell, even a biological attack. We've brought in criminals on the FBI's most wanted list. We've averted disasters where hundreds of thousands of people's lives were in jeopardy. I'm proud of being part of those missions. Of saving lives. But this is how I'm treated?"

"We need to find out where that intel came from, Jane. You know that."

"By torturing an amnesiac. Sure, that's bound to work." She rolled her eyes and picked up the bowl he'd brought in. The stew was congealed and clammy in her mouth, but it would keep her occupied so she could think through her answers to his questions—and filter out anything she didn't want him to know.

"I think you were a very dangerous person in your past life. You might have fooled Kurt Weller and Bethany Mayfair, but you don't fool me."

Jane chewed slowly, wishing she could take the risk of smashing his head against the wall. The other guards were surely outside, and fighting with just her fists wasn't going to cut it against all three of them, not when she was so bruised and battered.

"What's your ulterior motive, huh? What's the endgame of winning Weller's trust?"

She swallowed her mouthful of food. "If I ever knew that in the first place, I don't know it now. Whoever I used to be, I don't remember her. If I was one of the bad guys, then losing my memory is the best thing that ever happened to me, because I get to be a better person. And if I've done awful things, I don't want to remember them."

"Even if it might save lives?"

"How long have you been trying to get answers from me? A month? Two? Three? My memory was chemically erased. You know that. I can't just snap my fingers and get that back just because you injure me."

Seeing an opportunity to get him out of there, she leaned forward. "I'm kind of the opposite of you, Jake. You must have joined the CIA for noble reasons, right? Protect your family, the American people, whatever? But look at you now. You're just a torturer. Congratulations, Jake. You've become one of the monsters."

For a moment, he didn't move, his face inscrutable. Then he muttered, "Enjoy your meal," and left, slamming the door behind him.

Jane smiled down at her unappetising gruel. That should keep him away for a little while.

She just hoped his retribution wouldn't be as monstrous as she'd implied he was.