Author's Note: So, Keaton might not be in this chapter, but don't assume he's not going to pop up later... First, we have to fix that whole canon mess of 'Nas sleeps with Kurt' that happens in this episode! (Surprisingly, though, I'm not actually going to replace it with 'Jane sleeps with Kurt'.)
The second their agent on the ground, Caruso, had finished bringing Kurt and Nas up to speed with the rest of them, Jane cleared her throat. "Weller, could I have a word?"
Looking resigned, Kurt nodded. In silence, they headed into the next room.
Jane shut the door firmly behind them and spun to glare at Kurt. "What the hell is going on?"
"Jane, I—"
"No, let me finish before you start." Unsure whether she was angry or hurt, she folded her arms across her chest and tried to put her confusion into words. "I don't have a problem with you splitting up the team, or being partnered with Reade. But it's pretty clear to me that I'm being left out of the loop here, and I don't understand why. I thought we might have a tail back there, but I didn't get a good look at the guy. But then you give Reade instructions like I need to be protected or distracted, and Nas is gone, and you take off after her…" She shook her head. "I want the truth. Now."
Kurt took a breath before answering, as though knowing he was about to make things worse. "I can't tell you, Jane."
Incredulous, she stared at him. "We just finished repairing our relationship after we both kept secrets from each other, and you won't tell me what this is about? How am I supposed to trust you when you shared information with Nas and Reade, but you're keeping me out of it?"
"I know it seems like a betrayal. If I were in your shoes, I'd be pissed too."
"Then why—?"
"Two days," he interrupted. "Just give me two days, Jane. Let me handle this, and the second we get back home, to one of our apartments, I will tell you everything. I swear."
His intensity shook her. He almost looked desperate, and she instinctively reached out to take his hand, unable to ignore his distress. "Kurt, I don't understand."
"Something has changed, and I need you to stay away from this. Go sightseeing. Buy a sketchbook and draw the scenery. We can handle the operation without you; Caruso can step in."
Jane frowned down at their linked fingers. "Is this Sandstorm-related?"
"Kind of," he admitted.
"Then I should know."
"Two days," he said again. "I know this is a lot to ask. But I'm not trying to cover up some kind of personal indiscretion, or keeping secrets about your identity. I'm not doubting your abilities or your training. I fully intend to tell you what's going on. But I need to get this op done first. If things go sideways here, we could lose Winter and you could end up breaking your cover with Sandstorm."
"You're asking me for a pretty big leap of faith, here," Jane said. Her anger was mostly gone; it was clear that Kurt had a good reason for what he was asking, even if he wouldn't tell her what it was. And after all she'd done to maintain her cover as Remi, she didn't want to burn herself now.
"I know. And I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important." He drew their joined hands towards his chest, until she could feel the steady beat of his heart under her palm. "If you only do one thing that I ask ever again, make it this. Please, Jane. Trust me."
Jane swallowed, her stubborn streak warring with her feelings for Kurt. Something within her gave way, and she sighed, her shoulders sagging. "Okay. I do trust you. But when I find out what this is about, if I don't agree that it was worth keeping me out of, that trust is gonna be gone."
Kurt nodded and pulled her into a tight, relieved hug. Jane returned it, turning over possibilities in her head and coming up blank. Was someone from Sandstorm here? But she'd told Roman she was going to be here, so that shouldn't be an issue…
She gave up on trying to figure it out for now, letting her eyes fall closed as she basked in Kurt's warmth. Why did it feel as though she was comforting him? None of this made any sense.
"Oh, by the way," she said, "The team knows about us. Apparently we suck at hiding it."
Kurt drew back, his eyebrows raised. "Wait. They know? Does that mean everyone knows?" And we can stop hiding? He didn't have to speak the last words for Jane to know they were there.
"Just the taskforce, according to Reade. And don't forget, we still have to make Sandstorm buy it without them suspecting Remi has switched sides."
He sighed. "I know."
Impulsively, Jane leaned in and pressed a light kiss to his lips, the last of her anger having drained away. "Go finish this so we can go home and start working on that."
He leaned in for a second kiss, not quite as light, sparking the beginnings of arousal in her lower belly. "What are you going to do? Go sightseeing?"
"No. I'm gonna be monitoring your comms so I can come in if you need emergency backup."
He drew away fast, alarm in his face. "No. Jane, you can not go anywhere near that hotel. You just promised."
"I will only come in if your lives are at risk." Knowing exactly what he was about to say, she held up a hand before he could say it. "Not some bullshit interpretation of the situation, like when I disobeyed your orders to try to take down that guy instead of waiting in the car. I mean if you're really, truly at the end of your rope, and someone is injured, or you're outnumbered five to one, or something."
"Okay." He nodded reluctantly. "We need to trust each other on this. You're trusting me that you shouldn't be out there, so I'll trust you that you won't jump the gun on being backup."
She gave a small, awkward smile. "All this trust. It's almost like we're a couple or something."
His answering smile was strong and affectionate, melting her heart. "Imagine that."
Jane pressed forward against him as they kissed, this time for long, dizzying moments. Before either of them could get too distracted, though, a rap on the closed door interrupted them.
"Hey. You two better not be getting naked in there—we've still got a job to do, remember?" Reade called.
Kurt released her reluctantly. "Time to get to work."
Jane lingered after he left, making sure her hair wasn't mussed in the mirror over the mantelpiece. Then she joined the others in the next room, meeting their questioning looks with a resigned, "I've agreed to be benched. What's next?"
Kurt's adrenaline was running high as they unzipped the bag to release Winter. Not only had they managed to break him out past the Bulgarian mercenaries who were keeping him prisoner—using a large, rolling suitcase to disguise his extraction—but Jane had stayed away as she'd promised, Keaton had failed to intercept them, and Winter had already admitted he'd been in contact with Mayfair.
Winter crawled out of the bag with a grimace of pain as Jane appeared in the doorway. "Everything go okay after you came off comms?"
"I think I popped a rib," Winter complained, grimacing and staggering over to a chair. He glanced up at Jane and did a double-take. "Nice tattoos."
"Uh, thanks." She looked from Nas to Reade and back to Kurt. "Are we sure this is him?"
"I'm definitely Douglas Winter. And like I told these other guys, I was framed. I didn't leak those documents."
"Yeah, I know what you said. I was listening in." Jane caught Kurt's eye. "How do you wanna do this?"
"I'll take notes," Nas said, pulling out a notepad. "Caruso and Reade are switching our getaway vehicle for something new to get us back to the airport."
"Can I get some real food first?" Winter asked plaintively.
"No," Kurt said immediately, kicking the bag aside and pulling up a chair opposite him.
This guy wasn't quite as bad as Rich Dotcom, but the two of them would have gotten along famously. They even both seemed to have crushes on him. Jane had probably been snickering as she'd listened in on their comms.
"Get to the part where you have proof that you were framed for the information leak," Kurt said.
"Okay, okay. So, I was messing around on my guitar, which was a Les Paul knockoff…"
As the team listened incredulously, Winter related how two masked assailants using voice modulators had broken into his apartment, held him at gunpoint, then uploaded the classified files to his laptop and sent an email containing them to the New York Times.
When he fell silent, Kurt could sense Nas' exasperation with the guy. Before she could really begin to lose her cool, he said, "That's a great story, but it's not proof."
"No, but this is." Winter smiled and unsnapped one of the arms from his spectacles. Inside was a tiny chip that Nas seized the moment he held it out. She turned to a computer and began to access the information as Winter explained, "I was playing my guitar into my Rock Composer app, and it recorded the whole thing."
"You could have faked the recording," Jane said dubiously, looking over Nas' shoulder.
"I'll get Patterson to un-modulate the voices, see if they match anything in the FBI database," Nas muttered, already typing an email.
Kurt still had questions. "Is this why you contacted Mayfair? To prove your innocence?"
Winter shifted. "Yeah, man—Mayfair, he was the only person I could trust."
The clatter of Nas' keyboard ceased for a split-second before she continued typing. Jane stepped into Kurt's peripheral vision, but remained silent.
And Kurt felt as though someone had just slugged him in the gut. "Mayfair was a she," he said tersely, hoping the guy had just mispronounced the pronoun, and would go on to provide more details about his association with their old boss.
Instead, Winter looked like he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "No, yeah, I know that. That's why—"
"You know that?" Jane said sharply.
"I do know that. She… she was beautiful—"
Mayfair would have snorted at the idea that she was beautiful, maybe rolled her eyes. She hadn't been unattractive, but beauty wasn't the first thing you'd mention about her. A wave of unexpected loss and grief swept through Kurt, stealing his breath for a moment.
"Okay, maybe I have no idea who Mayfair is, but it seemed important to you, and I needed your help to get me out of there, and the rest is totally true. Check the drive—just check the drive."
Kurt stood up slowly, tuning Winter out. He needed to process this. "Nas—you got this?"
"Absolutely." Nas glanced over, then nodded, understanding dawning. "Take some time. I'll let you know when Reade gets in touch."
Kurt turned towards the door and caught sight of Jane's face. She looked subtly devastated in her own way, but as much as he wanted to reach out, he didn't think he could right now. He had to be alone.
As he left the room, her hand slid up his forearm and squeezed, then released him. A silent gesture of comfort that he appreciated more than he could express.
The room farthest away from Winter, who had begun to babble again, was a bedroom. Kurt shut the door, muting Winter's voice. He sank down on the end of the bed, staring blankly at nothing.
God, he missed Mayfair. With everything that had happened, his grieving for her had been disrupted, distracted. He hadn't realised how high his hopes had been for this mission until Winter had deflated them with a few clumsy words.
He saw Mayfair's face in his mind's eye. She was shaking her head sadly, as though she knew how much he still wanted to lean on her, depend on her, ask her for guidance about the whole Sandstorm mess. I'd help you if I could, her expression seemed to say, but I'm dead. You know that. You have to go on without me.
Kurt dropped his head into his hands, finally accepting the truth. The hard, complex knot of grief in his chest seemed to loosen as he allowed his tears to fall.