Author's Note: I don't plan to novelise the whole of season two, don't worry! But I do want to add a little twist into the first episode. Which you'll probably see next chapter. :)
Weller was the one to release her from the lie detector chair. It was the first time she'd seen him since she'd broken down last night, and he didn't look to have slept much better than she had.
Jane had hoped the nightmares would subside once she was back in a familiar place, but so far, no such luck. She'd gone to sleep with the window cracked partially open, and that had been a mistake; when her detail had heard her yelling from out on the street, they'd barged in and found her huddled in the corner of the room, her arms over her head.
She'd tried to explain, but the words had come out garbled. Luckily, one of the agents posted had experience with PTSD sufferers, and had gotten the other guy to stand down. That hadn't stopped them from coming right back in when she'd lapsed into a second nightmare. At least they hadn't tried to touch her.
"So now everyone knows everything," she said, to fill the silence. "How much do they wanna shoot me?"
"They'll need some time to process. Let them come to you." He sighed. "Your detail said you had a bad night."
Jane shrugged her good shoulder. "No worse than the night before. Or the night before that. I'm sorry it's making their jobs harder, though."
"You understand that they have to come in? That they need to check you're safe?"
Jane nodded uncomfortably. "Weller… Nas said Dr. Borden isn't cleared to hear about Sandstorm, or the CIA taking me. How am I supposed to get through this without being honest with my therapist? Can I even tell him about…" …how I can't even be in my living room with you anymore? "…my arrest? Or that I'm not Taylor Shaw?"
"He already knows you're not Taylor," Weller said. "I went to him the morning after my father died and told him about the deathbed confession. Asked him if it was possible he was delirious even when he sounded lucid."
Imagining how torn up inside Bill Weller's death must have made Kurt, Jane reached out to put a hand on his arm without thinking. "I'm so sorry."
Are you? His remembered voice from the night of her arrest made her draw back quickly. His rejection of her genuine sympathy had cut her to the bone, especially with the implication that she was happy Bill was dead.
"Jane? Where did you just go?" Weller was studying her with concern. It was only a matter of time before he figured out just how much the arrest bothered her. She might as well just tell him, but…
She shook her head. "So I can tell him I'm not Taylor. Can I tell him I was captured and tortured?"
"Yeah. But don't mention who did it." He looked apologetic. At least that was something.
"A-and my arrest?" She forced out the words.
Weller shook his head.
Jane closed her eyes and turned from him. "I dream about it, Weller. I can't just keep it inside."
His voice was taken aback. "You dream about the arrest? Then talk to me. I sent the team out on early lunch. I have time."
"No. I can't talk about it, not with you." Though she had to admit that it was tempting to turn back around and give him an in-depth explanation of just how insignificant he'd made her feel that night. How irrelevant to him. How discarded. You're not Taylor Shaw. You're under arrest.
Weller quietly said, "If you change your mind, I'm here for you. Anytime."
"Is there anything else I have to lie to Borden about?" Jane asked, brushing aside the offer. Damn you, Weller. You caused this. Stop trying to fix it, and face that you broke it.
"Nothing about Sandstorm, nothing about the identity of your torturers and nothing about your arrest. I think that covers it."
Jane headed for the door. "Then I'm gonna go make an appointment. If Nas needs me, that's where I'll be."
After lunch, the team assembled—with Nas and Jane—in one of the rooms allocated for Nas' Zero Division activities. No one but them had access, and Director Pellington impressed upon them the classified nature of the area and their mission before he left them to it. He never addressed Jane directly, and Weller could tell that came as a relief to her.
His team's reactions to Jane were fairly predictable. When she'd walked in, Patterson had given her a guarded smile and a soft, 'hi, Jane', though her body language had been closed off, dissuading any further socialising at that point. Weller appreciated that she seemed to be taking his words about Jane's suffering to heart.
Reade had given Jane a brief nod, neither friendly nor unfriendly. That was about as much as Weller had expected of him.
Zapata, though, was openly hostile, returning Jane's hello with a silent glare that discouraged any attempt at conversation. No one in the room had any doubt that she considered Jane very unwelcome.
Together, they refined Jane's initial plan to infiltrate Sandstorm: call Hobbes on the Joey's Pizza number she'd used to set up emergency meetings with Oscar. Meet her new handler and tell them that she'd been tortured by Cade, that she'd managed to escape, that she'd proven her loyalty with her actions so far, and that it was time for her to meet Shepherd.
"It's likely that Shepherd will want to put you back in play as an FBI double agent, in which case, we'll be able to check in with you directly afterwards and adapt our plans based on the intel you find, and your meetings with your new handler. That's the best-case scenario, and the most likely." Nas gave Jane a reassuring smile.
"And if they just want Alice back with them?" Reade asked.
"Then I'll go in deep," Jane said, determination written across her face. "I'll get them to tell me everything I can, and as soon as I can get that information to you, I will. It might be days or weeks, depending on how suspicious they are and how well they keep an eye on me, but…"
"The tracker we'll be implanting as a false tooth is virtually undetectable. It will help us keep tabs on you and if they take you in deep, it could give us a location of their base camp."
"Virtually undetectable?" Weller didn't like the sound of that. Was Jane an asset or a sacrifice?
"Everything has its risks. But it's very unlikely they'll have the technology to detect it."
Jane looked down at her hands, keeping quiet. Weller suspected she'd be ditching Nas' expensive tracker the first chance she got.
The whole team—minus Patterson, who had a prior engagement—drove with Jane out of town to make the call to Joey's Pizza. Reade and Zapata rode with Weller, and Nas drove Jane in the car she'd be 'stealing' to make her fake getaway from Cade.
The false tooth with an implanted tracker was driving Jane crazy. It had a rough edge that kept catching the side of her tongue.
This thing is getting tossed the minute I'm out of Nas' sight, she thought, trying to concentrate on the tips the NSA agent was giving her about undercover work. Most of it, she'd already picked up from FBI fieldwork. The rest was just common sense. She made the right noises and tried not to dwell on the mistrust on her former teammates' faces when she'd entered the room with them.
Hi Zapata, Reade, Patterson… I used to be a terrorist and I got Mayfair killed. How was your summer? Because mine was torture.
She left the team down the street and dialled the Joey's Pizza number she'd memorised when Oscar had first given it to her. At first, she thought no one was going to pick up, but then a voice came on the line—not one she'd heard before, and yet familiar, so familiar…
"Joey's Pizza."
"I need to cancel my order," she said.
Was it her imagination, or did the man's breath catch before he gave her an address to go to?
She hung up, mulling over the exchange, and went back to where Weller and Nas stood, relaying the information.
Then, bidding a bitter farewell to her dreams of being able to hit the gym anytime this month, she added, "I need you to shoot me."
Weller and Nas both froze. "What?" Nas asked in disbelief.
"Jane, you've been through enough. Anyone who gives you more than half a glance can tell you've been systematically tortured. A bullet wound isn't going to—"
She cut Weller off, impatient to just get this over with. "Cade was one of the best they have. If you want me to sell how loyal I am and how difficult this has been, it's gotta look like it's cost me something. There cannot be any room for doubt."
Ignoring Nas' protest, she addressed Weller directly. "I need you to shoot me. In the side. It'll hurt a lot less than what Sandstorm will do to me if they don't buy my story."
"Jane—"
"You know I'm right. Just get it over with." She stepped back to give him a better target.
"Were you with Mayfair when she died?" he asked, drawing his weapon.
Yes. Good. Get angry. She nodded.
"What was the last thing she said?"
Something within her faltered, the pain of the memory making her withdraw from her bravado for a moment. She looked up into his face, clenched her fists and spat it out. "She said she wished she could see your face when you found out what I really am."
Grief flashed into his eyes, sadness and loss rather than rage. That wouldn't help him pull the trigger. Exasperated and heartsick, she yelled, "I'm the reason she's dead, Kurt, so do it!"
He gritted his teeth, and yes, there was the anger she needed from him—
Burning pain stabbed through her abdomen, the shock of it making her cry out. She staggered, spun to find Zapata lowering her weapon with ice in her eyes. "It's a clean shot."
For a split second, Jane wanted to cry for her friendship with Zapata, destroyed so easily. But she nodded her gratitude and tried to straighten up. She'd had so much worse from Keaton over the past few months. What was a little pain and blood loss on top of that?
Weller's hands on her shoulders steadied her. "You do everything you can to stay alive, Jane, you hear me? No matter what it takes."
Gasping for breath, she nodded. "I can do this."
He released her, his expression conflicted. "You can do this."
Jane staggered over to the car, somehow manoeuvred herself into the driver's seat and started the engine. I can do this. I just hope I don't pass out while I'm driving.
"Zapata, what the hell was that?" Weller rounded on his agent to stop himself from driving after Jane and dragging her straight to a hospital.
"She wanted someone to shoot her. You sure weren't going to." The judgement in Zapata's tone was clear. "I sped things up."
"She didn't need that bullet wound," Nas muttered, shaking her head.
"You took advantage of the situation for your own petty ends," Weller said, closing in on Tasha. "You wanted to hurt Jane."
"She's the reason Mayfair's dead! She admitted it! Ugh!" Zapata threw up her hands and got back in the car, glowering. "I give up. You don't see straight when it comes to her."
Weller turned on Reade. "You got an opinion you want to share?"
Reade stepped back. "I'm staying safely on the fence, here. I think you both have a point." He climbed into the backseat beside Zapata.
Nas opened the passenger door; since Jane had taken the other one, she was riding back with them. "Let's get back to SIOC and monitor the situation from there."
After one final glare in Zapata's direction, Weller got behind the wheel and started the car. "Ten dollars says she's gonna ditch that tracker before she gets halfway to Woodside."