Author's Note: I know this isn't the response some people were hoping for, but I'm nothing if not contrary! I'm hoping it works anyway... Let me know?

The moment the marriage proposal was out of his mouth, Kurt wished he could take it back. Not because his feelings had changed, but because this was the most impulsive decision he'd ever made, and he'd made it at the worst possible time.

He'd wanted to strengthen the emotional tether between him and Jane, make it so ironclad that she'd think twice about propelling herself into deadly situations while she was undercover. He'd needed her to know her future was here, with him, and it was long-term if she wanted it.

Her words as they'd talked about moving in together had encouraged him, and his desperation not to lose her to her own self-sacrificial impulses had done the rest. The idea of marriage, of a permanent commitment, had come to him while they were talking about how they'd each spend a million dollars, and under normal circumstances he'd have let it stay in his mind, turning it over in his head when he was alone, examining it from every angle and thinking about the possible consequences.

These circumstances were far from normal, and he'd stupidly let his heart overrule his good sense. Kurt's love for her was enough to cancel out his natural instinct for caution, and he'd spoken recklessly. And now they both had to deal with the fallout, on a night already too laden with despair.

When he'd suggested Jane move in for good, she'd been stunned in a good way, her lips curving a little even as her eyes had widened. But the marriage proposal had shocked her in a different way, he could immediately tell. Not only that, but for a split second she seemed to be recovering another memory—and not a good one.

"Kurt…" she whispered, her eyes troubled.

He started to turn away, mentally cursing himself, knowing he'd fucked this up. Only Jane's hand on his face, guiding his gaze gently back to hers, stopped him from leaving the balcony to lick his wounds alone.

"Hey…" She gave him a soft kiss, brief but emotional. "If we were going on as we have been—no big changes on the horizon—I would say yes in a heartbeat. You know that, right?"

He searched her face, love and sadness tinged with fear, and found no trace of deceit. Reminding himself to breathe past the lead weight in his chest, he nodded.

"Good. Because I wish so hard that I could stay here to plan our wedding." She tried to smile, but it fell flat, and it hurt even more to know he'd been the cause of it.

"But Kurt, I don't know what's gonna happen on this mission. I don't know what Shepherd will make me do, or how it will affect me. I… I don't know if the person you'll get back afterwards will be someone you want to stay with, and I can't bear the thought that you might feel honour-bound to marry me anyway, because of everything that's happened."

He opened his mouth to say he wouldn't, but realised he couldn't confidently make that claim. Back when he'd first found Jane, tortured and broken after her involuntary stay with Keaton, he'd felt it was his responsibility to help her, even after the way she'd betrayed him and his team. After all, it had been his fault she'd been in the holding cells, unable to escape as the CIA had swooped in to take her away, and even as he'd wished he could get some distance from Jane to process his anger and grief, he'd stayed by her side, to protect her and help her heal.

That had led to something wonderful, despite all the pain and resentment on both sides, but it might not work out that way a second time.

If she came back changed—bitter and resentful, emotionally shut down and barely the Jane that he recognised—he'd blame himself for letting her go undercover. The romantic in him would hold on, hoping for her demeanour to soften as her trauma grew more distant, no matter how much emotional agony she caused him.

That won't happen. It can't happen. She'll still be herself. She's too strong and stubborn to lose herself in all of this. It's one of the things I love most about her.

"Jane," he murmured, shaking his head. "You're still you. You've been through unimaginable hell already, and I never stopped loving you."

"I know. But it's not the things that are done to me that worry me. It's the things I might have to do, to keep my cover intact. And I… I don't know if it will make me harsher, more bitter. More like Remi."

"You're not—" he started, but she shook her head, covering his lips with her fingers.

"We don't know the future, Kurt. I don't want to come back and spend my time worrying that you don't really want to spend your life with me anymore. I just… I need to get this over with first."

He nodded, trying to push the pain of her rejection aside. Her reasons made sense, and he understood that she was right to be cautious, but his ego was still a little bruised.

"I know you wouldn't have asked tonight, if I wasn't leaving tomorrow." She stroked his cheek gently. "While I'm away, think about it some more. Be sure it's really what you want. And when I come back, if I'm still the same person, if you still want to commit to me for the rest of our lives…ask me again. Okay?"

"I'm sorry," he told her, feeling almost hollow. "I made everything worse by asking now."

Her smile this time was subdued, but genuine. Her gaze shone with love, filling the void within him. "No, Kurt. It means the world to me that you felt so strongly. This is more than I ever dreamed of."

Needing a little respite from everything, he picked up her hot chocolate mug and handed it back to her. "What did you remember?"

She blinked, frowning. "Remember?"

"When I asked you." Despite the situation, he couldn't help but smile a little. "I've started to recognise the look you get when a memory comes back." I just hope I get to see it again after tonight.

Jane looked away uncomfortably. "I don't…want to bring that into it."

It didn't take a genius to work out what kind of memory his marriage proposal might have triggered. Watching her drink some more of her chocolate, he asked, "Oscar?"

It wasn't the punch to the gut he'd once have felt. Kurt hadn't even known Oscar had been in Jane's life until after she'd killed him, but knowing they'd been together on both sides of the memory wipe, that Oscar had known everything about who she'd used to be, what she liked, what she responded to in bed—that had made him feel as though he could never measure up. But then he'd listened to Jane talking about her brief post-ZIP relationship, and its disastrous ending. He'd realised that despite knowing everything about Remi, and using it to his advantage while getting to know Jane, Oscar had never respected Jane as an individual person, with her own opinions, the autonomy to make her own decisions. He'd been too attached to Remi.

Kurt tried not to think about what would have happened if Oscar had managed to dose Jane with ZIP for a second time. As angry and nauseated as the idea made him, he also felt a strange kind of empathy with the man who'd killed Mayfair. The thought of Jane looking at him blankly, as though he were a stranger, was more than Kurt could bear. Oscar must have been in hell.

But at least Oscar hadn't been sending Remi to the bad guys, alone and without any ability to call for backup. That was its own kind of hell.

Oh, Kurt… Do we really have to talk about this now?

This whole evening was turning out to be much more difficult than Jane had anticipated. Kurt's marriage proposal had been so impulsive, so out of character for him, that he must be struggling with her impending absence more than she'd anticipated. And her stupid doubts and fears were making things worse for him.

Everything was a mess. Why couldn't she just accept his proposal and be happy about it, and they could break off the engagement later if things didn't work out?

We'll find each other again, on the other side of all of this. Remi's words to Oscar, as they'd waited for Markos to prep her ZIP treatment.

That was part of the problem, along with everything they'd already discussed. Superstitious and illogical though it was, the fate of Jane's last fiancé wouldn't leave her mind. She'd gotten a flash of Oscar down on one knee, a glittering ring in a velvet box held in his hand, and she'd known Remi's feelings about being proposed to had been the same as hers: shock and uncertainty, though Remi's had been rooted in slightly different insecurities.

Remi's kneejerk reactions were in agreement with her own on some things, which unsettled Jane. Marriage was traditional, conventional. It was for people with steady lives and certain futures. It wasn't meant for broken people like her, who could barely sleep through a night and had a history of hurting the man she loved.

And after Remi had promised Oscar she'd get through her mission and come back to him, she'd become Jane. And Jane had killed him, destroying that promise. She still dreamed about impaling him on the scythe, the agonised shock in his face as he'd realised what she'd done. It had been justified—almost accidental—but knowing that didn't make it easier.

You can't compare Kurt to Oscar, or this mission to Remi's.

Jane took a breath before looking back up at Kurt. "It was more like extra memories of things I already knew, really."

"But not good memories." It was a statement, not a question. Sometimes Jane wished he didn't know her so well.

She sighed. If he really wanted to talk about it, she wouldn't deny him. "Good and bad, for Remi. She and Oscar were engaged, but she broke it off in the planning stages of her mission to infiltrate the FBI. Not because she didn't want to marry him, but because she thought it would make them both more focused on what was coming. But she told him that on the other side of it all, they'd find each other again."

Understanding dawned in his eyes, though there was a trace of hurt at her insinuation of parallels. "And instead, he forced you to kill him."

"I know that we're not in the same situation, that I'm not gonna switch sides again, that we're not gonna turn on each other. It's just…" She sighed, trying to massage some tension out of the back of her neck. "Since the black site, I've had so many awful nightmares where I kill you, or torture you, or you do those things to me… I guess the PTSD is getting in the way of this as much as the reality of things."

Kurt slid his hand over the one she was using to massage her neck. "Let me."

At his gentle urging, Jane turned to face the view out over the river. His firm but loving touch eased her fears along with her tension, and she closed her eyes. "This isn't a rejection, Kurt. Just a rain check."

"I know."

"I love you."

He kissed the back of her neck tenderly. "And I love you, Jane."

She turned slowly and wrapped her arms around his waist, her empty mug dangling from her fingers at his back, her cheek pressed against his collarbone.

Kurt stroked her hair, holding her tightly. "Our future is gonna be amazing. All we have to do is fight through to it."

Jane wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or cry. All we have to do is stop a major terrorist attack that's been planned out with military precision, that we know no details about yet, while separated from each other, unable to share intel or support each other, while I try to convince my terrorist family that I'm eager to help them with their 'complete reset'.

Sure, that'll be easy.

"Tomorrow, we start the fight," Kurt added, as though his mind had been running along the same track as hers. "Tonight is still for us."

His unspoken suggestion was easy to read, and Jane was in total agreement. Enough thinking. I just want to switch off my brain and feel.

She leaned back in his arms, just enough to guide his lips down to hers.