Author's Note: Not gonna lie, I'm struggling a little bit at the moment. Sorry this chapter is kind of short. I've kind of lost my confidence a bit over the past twenty-four hours, so I'm not sure when my next update will be. I'm not giving up on the fic, I've just kind of given myself stage fright, I guess? I've gotten around to reading some of the other fics that deal with post-trauma Jane and it kind of feels like they've already hit all the right notes, and so much better than I could! But I still want to finish and I will - I just need to crawl back out from under my blankets. Thanks for your patience.

Roman was already leaning over the bar when Jane arrived, a beer in front of him and a morose expression on his face. Jane approached tentatively, not wanting to startle someone who'd already admitted to past trauma. "Roman?"

He smiled a little and sat back. "There you are."

As she took the barstool next to him, Roman signalled the bartender. "Bourbon. Neat."

"It took me a whole night of drinking with two of the FBI team to figure out that bourbon's my drink," Jane said, taking it with a nod of thanks to the guy behind the bar.

"You still have the same food and drink preferences, even after the ZIP. I guess I should warn you to avoid Peeps, if you haven't found that out already."

"Those crappy marshmallow birds? Yeah, I found that out the hard way." She shuddered. "Not a fan. For some reason, Reade's addicted to them."

"We used to line them up on the fence and use them for target practice when we were teenagers."

Jane grinned into her drink. "A little smaller than beer cans, aren't they?"

"Shepherd wanted us to be accurate. The smaller the target, the better she liked it." He cocked his head at her. "You had a drink before you came out here?"

"You could tell, huh?" She shrugged. "Weller has a bottle in his office. We just wrapped up a case, so he poured us one."

"What do you think of him?" Roman asked.

Jane got the feeling the question was double-edged, somehow. She took a slow sip of her drink before she answered.

"I like him. I like the whole team, though we have our differences in a lot of ways," she said carefully. "He's solid to work with, doesn't put his people in danger. Good grasp of mission tactics. Why? What do you think of him? And don't tell me you haven't surveilled him at some point."

"I agree. He's solid. Honest. Morally upstanding. That's why we sent you to him."

Seeing an opportunity to get more information, Jane said, "I don't get it. I thought you sent me to Weller because Mayfair was his superior. You're telling me you did it because he's good at his job? A good person?"

Roman hesitated, as if sensing he'd slipped up somehow. "You had no memory when you came out of that bag. We wanted to make sure you were with an agent who would treat you like a human being, not like a living piece of evidence."

"And I'm sure his weakness for Taylor Shaw helped as well."

Roman inclined his head and kept drinking.

Sensing she was hitting a dead end, Jane changed course. "So, you looked kind of down when I walked in, and you actually wanted to hang out with me socially, with no missions or tests going on. At least, that I know about. What's wrong?"

He sighed. "I don't know. I guess I just miss you. The old you, I mean. Don't get me wrong, I see flashes of you in there, but you're not back yet. We went through so much together as kids. I got used to you not being around when you joined the military, but that was a while ago. We had a few years together after you got back, though you were living with Oscar, not me and Shepherd anymore. And then you went off on this mission, so…"

"I'm sorry." She sighed. "I can't imagine what would make me give up a whole lifetime's worth of memories for this mission. I know we had some awful childhood experiences, but we must have had good times too. Fun times. Times I wouldn't want to give up my memories of."

Roman shook his head. "You were dedicated. Totally devoted to the mission. You came back from Afghanistan in a rage, totally ready to bring this government down. You were close to the others in your unit. You lost a lot of friends that day."

"But you're my brother. Shepherd's my mother. I still had you."

Roman snorted. "Shepherd pushed you the whole way. She saw that new fire in you and she fanned those flames as much as she could. We were the first soldiers in her private army, and we're still the best. I thought she'd want to keep her generals close by, keep their minds intact, but no. She wanted you to go, almost as much as you wanted to."

Jane felt a wave of sympathy for Roman. He'd gotten swept up between two strong-willed, fanatical family members who cared more about the cause than about him. No wonder he was depressed.

"I think Remi was wrong," she said softly. "She shouldn't have given up her memories. Not when you'd been through so much together."

For a second, she thought Roman was going to cry, but he shook his head and drained his beer bottle instead. "Your round."

They moved to a quiet table in the corner of the bar with their second round of drinks, at Jane's request. What she wanted to ask was too sensitive for a bartender to overhear.

"What's happening with Cade?"

She'd been prepared to use the turncoat operative as a cover story when she'd been fairly sure he was dead, but now she knew he was alive and had been trying to stop Sandstorm, the fact that he was back in their hands didn't sit right with her.

"Oh, don't worry, he's still alive. We're saving him for you. We're nearly done with him, though, so you'll get to avenge Oscar as soon as we're sure we don't have anything else to extract from him."

Jane blanched, the Jeffrey Kantor scenario running through her head again. Another test she might have to pass or fail. Knowing Roman could sense her distress, she took a sip of her drink to calm herself.

"You mean torture, right? Sorry, I know what he did, and he deserves to die for what he did to Oscar, but anything that reminds me of the CIA…" She shook her head.

She couldn't tell if Roman bought her reasoning. After a moment of silence, he asked, "PTSD still bad?"

"Getting a little better," she confessed. At least, her Weller-related trauma was lessening after the new memories they'd made together in her living room. Not that she could tell him that—some things you just didn't share with your brother, whether you were close to him or not. The other source of her trauma, however… "Any sign of Keaton?"

"He's in Europe somewhere. Lost track of him in Portugal." Roman scowled. "He's gotta come back sometime, though. We'll be ready for him."

Jane nodded, a distant coldness settling over her at the thought of the man who'd broken her body and fractured her mind. She wanted him to pay. The more she talked about him with Borden—the more she wasn't allowed to mention his name—the more she dreamed about him, the more setbacks she suffered in her recovery…the more she knew he had to be stopped. And law enforcement wouldn't do it. Weller and Nas could protect her, but not prevent him from continuing to do the same thing to others.

It's not Keaton. It's the whole agency. If you kill him, his replacement will be just as bad. Look at what Carter was like. Whoever's next in line will be just as barbaric.

But what could she do? No one would prosecute him. It was all 'in the interests of national security'. Maybe he'd get a slap on the wrist for using black sites on US soil, but anything else would be dismissed as necessary. How could she fight something like that, without embracing her old, terrorist self? How could she explain to Weller if she—

"Remi. Look at me."

Jane realised she wasn't breathing and let out her breath as a tearless sob, then sucked in a fresh lungful of air. It wasn't a panic attack, not the way she'd had them before. It felt more like she was frozen, like she had to will herself to breathe rather than have it happen naturally.

Roman's gaze steadied her. "I know all this is hard. I wish I could help more. Just hang in there, okay?" He squeezed her hand.

"I thought I was doing better," she said.

"It hasn't even been two months yet. You need time."

"I'm sick of being so weak. I can't even use a punching bag yet. I just want to get back to being strong, you know?"

"You're the strongest person I've ever met," Roman said, smiling a little. "You dragged me through our childhood when I wasn't strong enough to go on. You're allowed a little downtime now and then."

"Why do I get the feeling Shepherd doesn't agree?" Jane said.

The smile dropped off his face, the shadows returning. "Because she doesn't. Not anymore."