Author's Note: You guys just love it when I hurt Jane, don't you? :D Have some more angst, and thank you for reading!
Just a dream. It's just a dream. Just a dream…
Jane concentrated on her breathing, slowing it down as she scrubbed tears from her face with her good hand. Pain pulsed in sickening waves down her right arm, twice as intense as it had been before. She couldn't get Keaton out of her head. It hurt so badly that he might as well be standing over her, twisting the injured limb and demanding to know her name.
You hit Weller. Why did you do that? He's the only one who can keep you safe from this mess.
And he was probably worrying himself crazy outside the door, if she knew him. Then again, she'd never have thought he would have arrested her for the serious crime of not being Taylor Shaw, but she'd been wrong about him. Maybe he didn't care what she was going through, and was trying to get back to sleep.
The nightmare wouldn't leave her mind. In it, Mayfair had bled out on the floor while Keaton had swung a length of heavy industrial chain like a whip, hitting her over and over, until the hook she was suspended from had broken and she'd collapsed to the floor. Then Weller had come to stand over her, and she'd reached out to him for help. But he'd only looked at her with disgust.
"You killed Taylor Shaw. Jane Doe, you're under arrest."
Just a dream. You didn't kill Taylor. You were about five years old when she died. Calm down and look at the facts.
Funny how the comforting voice in her head sounded like Borden. Maybe his therapy sessions had been more effective than she'd thought.
She was going to have to go back out there sometime. Carefully, she got up from the bathroom floor and turned on the faucet to wash her overheated, tearstained face. Doing it with one hand wasn't quite as effective as with two, and the water made hardly any difference to her outward composure, since her puffy black eye and assorted bruises dominated her face. Still, it made her feel a little better.
She took a breath to brace herself, then opened the door.
Weller was sitting on the end of the bed, his shoulders tense. He rose as she stepped back into the room. "Talk to me, Jane."
Talk to him? And tell him what? If she said she'd dreamed that she'd killed Taylor, he'd probably believe it. If not for the physical impossibility of a five-year-old murdering and burying another five-year-old, she'd be worried it meant something, too. The person she used to be had probably done worse.
"I'm fine," she said automatically, meaning that she didn't want to talk about it. Then she winced, realising she probably sounded like a passive-aggressive teenage girl pretending she didn't want to pick a fight with her boyfriend.
Weller gave her an exasperated look. "No, you're not. Don't make me play guessing games, not now."
What could she say that was safe?
"I had a nightmare and I…I overreacted. Okay? My arm is in pretty bad shape." Daring to look him in the face for just a moment, she asked, "Did I hurt you?"
"Probably won't even bruise," he reassured her, trying a small smile, then stepped forward, reaching out as if to examine her.
She didn't realise she'd moved back out of his reach until his expression became hurt, just for a second before he shut the reaction down. Awkwardly, they stared at each other.
"Look, Jane…" Weller sighed. "I know you wanted to spend the night here, but I think we should get you to the hospital now your arm's worse."
The thought of the bright lights and strange people all around her made the blood drain out of her face.
Sensing her resistance, Weller said, "Please, don't fight me on this. If you don't get medical attention now, you might need to stay over in the hospital later, when you make yourself even worse."
He had a point. Anything to avoid an extended hospital stay.
She nodded. "I don't think I could sleep any more tonight anyway."
"My rental car is parked a block away. Are you okay to walk that far, or should I grab the car and come back for you?"
Thoughts of Keaton flashing back into her mind, Jane shivered. "I can walk that far. Let's go."
As if out of habit, Weller reached out to put his hand to the small of her back as she passed him. She quickened her pace, establishing distance between them without quite knowing why.
She glanced at the motel's reception area as they left the premises, wondering if Kalina was there. Jane definitely needed to thank her before they left for good. She hoped she and Kurt would come back to the motel before they moved on.
"So how did Kalina get to see the tattoo of my name on your back, anyway?" Weller asked, as though reading her mind.
Grateful to have something to talk about that wasn't her mortifying sleep behaviour, Jane said, "She saw the bruises on my face when I checked in and brought me some arnica. She didn't say much about her husband, but I got the impression he gives her occasion to need it a lot. She wanted to talk to someone else who had a violent partner, I guess."
"Yeah, she came by while you were asleep to check on you, and mentioned her husband might not like it if he thought she was bothering the customers. I'm gonna take a look into his finances and anything else I can think of when I get back to the NYO."
That's the Kurt Weller she'd fallen for; always thinking about the little things that might mean the world to someone else.
"Thanks. I think having him not be around for a while would be really good for her. She can't leave him until she has her green card."
They continued to walk for a few seconds of silence before Jane resumed her story. "Before she came and knocked on my door, I'd been about to take a bath, but I couldn't get my shirt off because my arm won't go over my head. I asked for her help, since she already knew about the bruises. She came back after I finished up and helped me put the arnica on the places I couldn't reach for myself."
"They're all over? Your bruises?" He sounded tense, though she couldn't see his face properly in the dark.
"Yeah." There was no point in elaborating. It was over now, and going over it again wouldn't help. "Anyway, that's when she saw your name and asked me who you were. It was kinda hard to explain why I'd have a guy's name tattooed on me otherwise, so I told her we were together for a while, but we broke up."
"Good call." It was impossible to tell what he thought of that.
"I'm guessing she called you?" It was the only way she could think that he could have tracked her down.
"And made me describe your tattoo and promise not to hurt you before she told me where you were. Smart, but if I'd been a danger to you she would have been throwing you straight back to the lions."
Jane nodded. "I should probably make sure she knows it might not go that way with the next person she tries to help."
Once they were safely inside the car and Weller had checked the location of the nearest hospital, he glanced over to her in the passenger seat. "Buckle up."
She reached for the seatbelt and hissed with pain as she knocked her injured arm against the passenger door. "I don't think I can."
Weller reached across her, leaning so close that for a moment, she was about to panic. When he dragged the belt across her body and notched the metal buckle into the clasp, her alarm receded, chased away by a wave of sadness.
Only a few months ago, a close, considerate moment like that would have sent a thrill of arousal through her. Now her primary reaction was to freak out.
"Thanks," she whispered.
They drove a block or so before he spoke again. "Your nightmare. Want to talk about it?"
It was as though a shutter slammed down, blocking the dread that surged at his words. Some kind of self-preservation instinct that seemed oddly familiar, though she couldn't remember an instance of it happening before now. She was grateful for the artificial calm it provided as she answered simply, "No."
Weller clearly didn't like that answer. "Jane… I went to military school. They taught us all about PTSD, and if you don't talk about what you went through, it gets—"
"I don't have PTSD." He was pushing on the shutter, trying to get in, and she couldn't let him break through because all the chaos she was keeping contained would spill out everywhere. "It was one nightmare, okay? I'll survive."
"Okay. Then tell me about the black site."
No. If I don't talk about it, it didn't happen. Ignore it, and it'll go away.
She knew it wasn't true even as she thought it, but she'd deal with later, later. For now, she had to keep herself from falling apart so she could get through all the clinical poking and prodding.
"Just back off, Weller. I'll tell you anything you want to know from back before you arrested me, but that topic is off-limits, understand?"
The sharp edge to her tone seemed to startle him, but he didn't argue. Instead, he set his jaw and moved into the fast lane, retreating from the conversation.
She should have been pleased that he'd respected her wishes, but instead, loneliness settled into her aching body. The distance between them was only about a foot, but it felt like a thousand miles.