Author's Note: Sorry this is so case-heavy at the moment! Setting up for the end arc kind of requires this stuff. But I do have some angsty, fluffy Jeller to come in the next chapter, based around the fact that Jane still has PTSD, but now doesn't have a therapist... Anyway, this chapter is mostly case-related, and Kurt checking on Patterson.

"You remembered me?"

The agents working in holding were off investigating the baked goods in the break room down the hall. Jane had assured them that she could hold the fort for fifteen minutes while they took a break, and they hadn't needed much persuading. Now Jane was standing outside Borden's cell, and he was giving her a look of guarded hope.

"I got a memory of how we met and how I recruited you, just as I was walking down the hall after my session with you. Good thing I did, too. The NSA agent working with us at the moment, Nas Kamal? She's got bugs all over the place, including in your office, and since I promised I wouldn't tell anyone it was the CIA who tortured me, she started wondering why you knew about it. How did you know, by the way?"

"If she has bugs all over the place, how do we know she doesn't have one in here, too?"

Jane flashed him a quick glance of the palm-sized electronic device she was holding. Thank you, Patterson, for seeing this question coming. "I stole a signal jammer from the lab. We're safe to talk."

None of Patterson's signal jammers were actually that small—this was actually a sensor of some kind—but Borden didn't have the electronic expertise to know that. He relaxed, and Jane breathed an inward sigh of relief.

Borden—she just couldn't think of him as Thornton, not after he'd been Borden for the entirety of her life as Jane—rubbed his forehead and sighed. "It's the anniversary of my wife's death today. I didn't sleep well last night, and I forgot I wasn't supposed to know it was the CIA who tortured you."

Jane swallowed hard, guilt welling up within her. "I remembered Chris when I remembered you. I didn't know today was the anniversary, though. I'm sorry."

"Why did you say I stole those files?" He glanced nervously towards the door, as though afraid the holding agents would re-enter before he got his answers. "They'll never let me continue my work here now. Shepherd is going to be furious."

"When Nas started asking questions about you, I had to think fast. If I hadn't come up with a way for you to have known about the CIA, she might have taken a much longer, harder look at you. This way, we can say a CIA agent approached you when Nas started working here, asking for intel in exchange for cash—or whatever else you want to say they offered you."

Borden took a deep breath. "Okay. Okay, I can do that."

"I'll be meeting with Roman after work. He'll have a message from Shepherd, or he'll take me to her so we can plan our next steps. We'll get you through this, Nigel."

Her former therapist tried to smile. "I appreciate it. Strange how one little slip of the tongue has led to this."

No kidding. I'll have to be doubly careful with Shepherd and Roman now.

Jane pulled some folded papers out from under her shirt. "Take a look at these while I keep watch. It's what I said you stole, so you'll have a vague idea of what they'll be asking you in the interrogation room. They won't let me help to question you, because I'm the witness, so this is the best I can do."

While Borden studied the false files the team had put together earlier, Jane paced up and down, not needing to fake her nerves. Zapata and Reade were in the break room, ready to stall the holding agents if need be, but it was still possible another team would bring in a suspect while she was in here. If so, she'd have to come up with a reason for being the only one in here with a suspect, and for giving Borden supposed classified files to study. No one outside their taskforce knew about their operation to take down Sandstorm—Jane would look like a double agent for the wrong side.

"Are you done?"

Borden handed the papers back through the bars, and Jane tucked them back under her shirt.

"Why is this Nas woman bugging my office? What's her interest in the CIA?"

Jane gave him the cover story she'd come up with, that Nas was working with them in Zero Division to investigate abuses of power in the CIA. As she'd expected, Borden swallowed it.

"Don't worry," she reassured him. "Shepherd will know what to do. I'll let you know as soon as I can. In the meantime, stick to my cover story for you. Your fake identity is good enough that the FBI hired you without an issue. They won't uncover anything we don't want them to."

"Thank you, Remi."

Jane knew she'd flinched at his use of her old name, and covered it with, "I'm so sorry this had to happen on such a difficult day. If I'd remembered you earlier…"

"These things happen." Borden leaned against the bars of his cell. "Just, please, ask Shepherd to help."

Jane nodded. "Do we have any more people inside the FBI who could help? Is it just us?"

"As far as I know, we're the only ones. But you know how Shepherd is. She doesn't show her cards if she doesn't have to, even to her allies." Borden gestured for her to step back. "You should stand clear of the bars in case the agents come back unexpectedly."

Jane went to sit on one of the cheap, plastic chairs against the wall, and pulled out her phone in order to look busy. "Why didn't you tell me you were one of us? I mean, I guess it's a good thing you didn't, given the NSA bug thing. But if I'd known you knew about Shepherd, and the CIA, my therapy would have been so much more effective."

He gave her a sad smile. "I'm sorry about that. I could see you were struggling to find relevance in today's session. But Shepherd put me in place to monitor your mental state, and to guide you in case you decided you wanted to leave the FBI. I wasn't allowed to reveal myself."

Remembering how he'd insisted she didn't run away from the FBI after Oscar had approached her, Jane groaned. "It seems so obvious now."

"Hindsight is twenty-twenty, as they say," Borden said. Then he paused, his expression becoming ashamed. "Is Patterson… Could you ask Patterson to visit me here? I can tell she's hurt, and I—"

"She needs time," Jane said, cutting him off.

"Wouldn't you want to see Weller, if you were in my situation?" Borden persisted. "I know you're not together—at least, not yet—but…"

"If she wants to see you, she'll come to you. She's part of my team, and supporting her is part of my cover. If I start trying to persuade her to come see you, she'll get suspicious." And you don't get to screw with her head any more than you already have.

"Of course. I only meant…" Borden sighed. "I understand your position."

He really started falling for her. Even though his wife's death still haunts him, he has strong feelings for Patterson. Maybe we can use that.

In the awkward silence that followed, footsteps approached. By the time the holding agents re-appeared, holding slabs of chocolate cake partially wrapped in paper napkins, Borden was sitting at the back of his cell, staring at his feet, and Jane was reading a news article on her phone.

"Thanks, Jane. We owe you one."

"Hope there's still a little cake left for me," Jane joked, standing up.

The agents exchanged a glance. "Uhhhh… There might be if you run. Afreen and Brianna just got there, so there might not be for long."

Grateful for the chance to escape, Jane darted towards the door. "Thanks for the heads up. I'm gonna see what I can scavenge."

She did head straight for the break room, just in case the agents mentioned her desire for baked goods to Brianna or Afreen later. There were a couple of slices of cake still there, and as she greeted her colleagues, Jane snagged a piece to take back to Zero Division—not for her, but for Kurt. She wasn't particularly hungry—lies and manipulation tended to kill her appetite, though she doubted Remi had been afflicted with the same crisis of conscience—but Kurt and his sweet tooth would appreciate her gift.

"He wants to see me."

Holding had a video feed, but no audio, so they'd wired Jane up before she'd gone in there. Patterson had somehow synced up the video and audio feed for them earlier, but now she was just tearing herself apart by watching it over and over again, in a side room in Zero Division.

Nas and Zapata were working on interrogating Borden, with Jane and Reade observing from behind the one-way mirror. Knowing they wouldn't get much in the way of relevant intel out of Borden, since Jane had coached him on what to say, Kurt had taken time out to check on their team's resident genius.

"This has to be hard on you, Patterson. How are you holding up?"

Patterson hit pause on her video and shrugged. "I dunno. How were you holding up, the day you found out Jane wasn't Taylor Shaw?"

He sat down opposite her, sighing. "I had a hell of a lot more alcohol, and less composure, than you have right now. But I know that doesn't mean you're not hurting like hell."

"I'm just numb, I guess. Maybe it'll hit me properly later. But I loved him. I thought he loved me. He said he did." Her voice trembled a little, and she clenched her jaw.

"Maybe he does."

Patterson blew out her breath sceptically, rolling her eyes to try to hide the tears in them.

Suppressing his sudden urge to beat Borden into a bloody pulp, Kurt reached for his friend's hand, squeezing lightly before letting go. "Hey. I'm not gonna pretend I know exactly what you're going through, because what happened with me and Jane is different. But it's close, in some ways. The lies, the working behind my back… Before I realised Jane's intentions were good, I felt so damn angry and betrayed. So if you need to talk, I'm here for you."

"I—" Patterson faltered, then shook her head. "Part of me keeps trying to make this into something similar to your situation with Jane, even though I know terrorists don't just switch sides like that. If not for the ZIP, Remi would never have come over to our side. Even if Rob—Thornton did want to leave Shepherd for me, how could I ever trust him? He's probably killed hundreds or thousands of people. He had a wife and never mentioned her."

Kurt stayed quiet, hoping she'd continue to vent her emotions.

"And he was using me this whole time. I keep thinking back over everything I told him, trying to figure out if I gave him anything Sandstorm could use against us. But I just keep coming back to all the sweet things he said, and it just kills me."

Remembering how he'd wondered if Jane had known how much his heart fluttered every time she gazed at him with her big, beautiful eyes, Kurt nodded ruefully. "I know. But even though he was undercover, I'm pretty sure he must have fallen for you, at least a little bit. I saw what he's like when he's around you. Maybe it started out with him targeting you, to see what information he could get out of you, but…"

Patterson slumped in her chair. "It doesn't matter now, either way. He's burnt—even if he doesn't know how badly—and I need to get over it, and get on with my job."

"If you need to take some time off—"

She frowned at him, as though he'd uttered some kind of blasphemous sentiment. "What would I do with time off? Lie around in the bed Borden used to…to bring me breakfast in? Sit and stare at the board games I used to play with David?" She gave him an anguished look. "My life is my work. Every time I try to have a life outside of the lab, something bad happens, so…just let me do my job. Please."

"Your job? Or rewatching this video multiple times and torturing yourself?" His words were pointed, but he made sure his tone was gentle enough to soften them.

Patterson abruptly closed the laptop she'd been using. "Fine. I'll go back to my lab—where I can't watch this video, because it's classified—and see if I can solve another tattoo."

Kurt smiled a little. "Sounds like progress."

She gave him a weak smile in return. "Thanks for trying to make me feel better. I mostly just feel stupid that he lied to me. And, y'know, horribly hurt."

"I know." He stood up. "There anything I can do?"

Patterson shook her head. "I guess I just need time. Like Jane said on the video."

"She's worried about you, you know."

She gave him a regretful look. "Yeah. And I don't blame her for all this, not really. I'll apologise to her later for being harsh. I just… I heard the bad news, and I needed someone to be mad at. So I shot the messenger, I guess."

Listening to her words, Kurt was again struck by the similarity of what Patterson was going through, and how he'd felt about learning Jane wasn't Taylor. Arresting her hadn't been his finest hour. "Sounds familiar."

Patterson gave the laptop one more glance, then got up from her seat, too. "Hey, maybe we can form our own 'falling in love with terrorists' support group." She winced, as though realising how that would sound to Jane if she overheard. "Not that I actually see Jane as a terrorist now. I know she's a different case."

"Even so, if you need to talk about anything, or a shoulder to cry on…you know where I am."

"Thanks. I, uh… If I let myself cry now, I don't think I'll ever stop. But thanks for the offer."

They headed for the Zero Division exit together. Just as they reached it, Kurt asked, "Are you gonna go see him?"

Patterson shrugged. "I don't know. I haven't decided. Not… Not today, at least."

"You're gonna get through this, Patterson. We've all got your back. Even Nas…as much as she has anyone's back but her own."

Shooting him a half-amused glance, she said, "I'm for sure sweeping everywhere I go for NSA bugs, after her little confession today. Want me to check your apartment and Jane's safehouse after work?"

"If you're up to it. I'm almost sure you won't find anything, but now the idea's in my head…"

"Yeah. I'll come by later."

Kurt pulled Jane's spare safehouse key off his keychain and handed it over. "For Jane's place."

She thanked him and began to step back, towards the door.

"Patterson?"

She gave him an expectant look.

"Don't let this get under your skin more than it already has. Anything he took from you—intel or otherwise—that's his fault. You couldn't have known."

Patterson nodded. "Thank you, Kurt. Really."

As he watched her go, he wondered if this case had any more ugly surprises in store, any more emotional scars to leave on his team. For all their sakes, he hoped not.