Author's Note: Okay, a little bit more progress with this fic! My brain is being held together entirely with sugar and determination right now, so if there are any words missing or anything, I'm really sorry.

Thank you for being so patient with me - circumstances this year haven't exactly been creativity-friendly! Feedback is always very much appreciated. :)

The polygraph technician had assured her that the wrist restraints were so she didn't accidentally dislodge any sensors, not because they were expecting her to try to cheat the system. That didn't give Jane much comfort as Weitz interrogated her, with soft interjecting questions from Nas or Kurt at times.

Despite the fact that she trusted both Kurt and Nas far more now than she had the first time around, it was still an uncomfortable experience, especially since Weitz had been the one prosecuting Mayfair—as a result of evidence Jane had planted under duress. Now he was sitting there, judging her worth and obviously finding her wanting on several levels.

It wasn't like Weitz was some paragon of virtue. Jane suspected he'd sign her immunity deal without a single question if she donated enough to his campaign fund—not that she had the slightest intention of doing that.

"Have you spoken to Ellen Briggs since her arrest?" Weitz asked.

At least they were getting somewhere near the end now, if he'd switched to questions about yesterday, instead of her time undercover. This interrogation had been interminable. She'd somehow managed to hold it together as she'd related everything that had happened after she'd been drugged and kidnapped by Roman at Kurt's apartment, six weeks earlier. She'd admitted to training Sandstorm's forces to more effectively storm SIOC, and to killing an innocent trespasser, all to keep her cover intact. She was emotionally exhausted, and the morning wasn't even half over.

She tried to focus. "Since Weller put the cuffs on her? Yes. Agents Weller and Kamal were present the whole time, within sight and earshot. But have I seen Shepherd since Agent Kamal took her away to the holding cell, when we arrived back here? No."

Weitz gave little in the way of outward reaction to her response. "Do you plan to speak to your adopted mother again?"

"Yes." Jane fixed the lawyer with a stare that challenged him to tell her that wouldn't be allowed. "With my superior agents' permission and supervision, I plan to take part in her interrogations this week, beginning this afternoon."

This is my case, damn it, and my family. I have to see this through.

Weitz raised an eyebrow. "Do you plan to aid Ellen Briggs in escaping custody, or in any way further her plans for the destabilising of this country?"

Across the room, Jane noticed Kurt shifting in his seat, and Nas shot him a look meant to quell his protest.

"No," Jane said, falling back on one-word answers now that she could safely do so.

"Do you know of, or suspect there might be, any future plans by Dr. Nigel Thornton—also known as Dr. Robert Borden—to aid Ellen Briggs in her stated aims?"

"No."

"Do you know of, or suspect there might be, any future plans by Roman Briggs—formerly Ian Kruger—to aid Ellen Briggs in her stated aims?"

"No." Though I do worry.

Something in the MRI polygraph's readings must have looked bad, because Weitz leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers in his lap. "Do you doubt your brother, Roman Briggs, in any way?"

Damn you, Weitz.

"Roman doesn't have the benefits of having been de-programmed from our mother's brainwashing by ZIP, the way I have been. I'm worried that he'll find my new dedication to helping law enforcement alienating. It's just a worry, though, not based on any plans I suspect him of making. I'm worried about our relationship as siblings, not that he'll start committing acts of terror on his own."

Nas leaned forward, interjecting quietly, "We'll be able to determine Roman's mindset when he comes in for his polygraph, as soon as his health permits it. Asking his sister to speculate won't give us clearer answers than getting them from the man himself."

"Fair point," Weitz conceded.

Jane waited, knowing he was working up to something.

"If your brother, Roman Briggs, does begin to act outside of the law, will you assist him?"

"No." Jane scowled at him, holding his smarmy gaze. "By this point, I should think my loyalties are beyond question."

"We still have Borden's interview to get through, whenever you're done posturing," Kurt said, his voice pointed.

"Are you in love with Deputy Director Kurt Weller?" Weitz drawled.

Jane blinked, blindsided by the sudden shift in the line of questioning. "Yes."

Her eyes met Kurt's for a brief second, and she registered both love for her and irritation towards Weitz in his expression. She returned her attention to Weitz's face.

"If your relationship with Kurt Weller comes to an end, would you say you're at risk of returning to your old, pre-ZIP ways?"

From the way Kurt winced, Jane suspected Nas had stepped on his foot, or something similar. She wanted to scowl at Weitz, but she didn't have the luxury of losing her cool while he still held so much power over her future.

"No, absolutely not," she replied, keeping her voice level.

Weitz was silent for one more long moment—likely just for the purpose of irritating everyone else in the room. Then he shrugged, reached for the copy of Jane's immunity deal, and scrawled his signature on the page. The movement was so irreverent that she couldn't do anything but blink.

"Well, that about wraps things up. Congratulations. Don't make me regret this."

Despite her dislike of Weitz, nothing could ruin the rush of pure relief Jane felt at his words. As the polygraph technician began to strip her of the various sensors hooked up to her body, she closed her eyes, sagging back in her seat for a moment and exhaling hard.

I can't be prosecuted for anything Remi did. The CIA can't touch me now. I'm free.

Weitz's phone buzzed, and he glanced at it, then got up from his chair. "I gotta take this. Let's take a ten-minute break."

Jane watched him stride out of the room, answering the phone with a cheerful, "Go for Weitz!" and shook her head wearily.

"You okay?"

She looked up to find Kurt by her side, slipping his hand into hers. "I'm free."

"Yeah. You freed yourself." The warmth in his eyes made her heart swell, and she smiled up at him, her earlier annoyance at Weitz forgotten.

"Congratulations, Jane." As the polygraph tech stepped away, and Kurt helped Jane get up from the medical equipment, Nas approached with a smile.

"Thank you so much," Jane said, overwhelmed. "Having this second chance means everything to me."

"It's me who should be thanking you, Jane. You earned your freedom, and you brought in Shepherd—alive. I have more than a few things to discuss with her about the incident at the NSA last year, so getting that chance means more to me than you'll ever know."

Silence fell for a moment, then Nas glanced over at Kurt. "I suppose we should start getting Nigel Thornton hooked up to the machine."

"The sooner we get Weitz out of the building, the better," Kurt agreed.

Nas gestured for her technician to follow her, and together they left the room.

Kurt enfolded Jane in a tight hug. "I'm so proud of you."

"This might take a while to sink in," Jane confessed, holding onto him just as securely. "It doesn't seem that long since the first time they hooked me up to this machine, and questioned me about Oscar."

"Seems like way too long, to me. I'm ready to start putting this whole Sandstorm thing behind us." Kurt kissed her temple, then released her from his embrace. "Come on. You should change back out of that medical gown before Borden gets here. Weitz doesn't want you to be part of the questioning, but you can watch the interrogation from the observation room."

Jane hesitated, her stomach sinking at the thought of what was to come. "Do you want to go get Patterson, or shall I?"

"How have you been, since I've been away?" Jane asked, watching Patterson pace the length of the observation room.

"I, uh… I don't know. Hard to answer that question. How do you adjust the idea that your boyfriend helped plan nuclear genocide?" Patterson gave a sad shrug. "I've been working a lot. I avoided going to talk to him for over a month. I just…couldn't face it, I guess."

Imagining how much pain and turmoil her friend must have been in, Jane felt tears begin to threaten. "I'm so sorry, Patterson. If I'd just remembered him earlier, I could have saved you so much heartache, and—"

"Hey, no." Shrugging off her restlessness, Patterson sat down beside Jane, placing a reassuring hand on her arm. "I know I was harsh when I first found out, but I never once blamed you for not remembering. The amount of ZIP you had in your system, I'm actually kind of shocked you remember anything at all from your old life. At least you remembered before you went undercover. If you hadn't…"

We might not be sitting here now.

Jane nodded at the unspoken words. "Even so, it's my fault he even came to the States, let alone became a terrorist. If I'd just left him behind…"

"You didn't radicalise him. Not the way Shepherd brainwashed you and Roman. I've had a lot of sleepless nights to think about this, Jane." Patterson's expression was bleak. "You and Roman had years of abuse and training, by your orphanage, then by Shepherd. Borden didn't have that. All it took was one traumatic event—as awful and unjust as that event was. And three years later, he was helping Shepherd smuggle nukes into Capitol Hill. He was rotten to begin with."

Jane opened her mouth to point out that working for Doctors Without Borders, treating traumatised victims of war for years on end, would have been slowly shifting his viewpoint before Chris' death— and Remi's words—had pushed him the rest of the way. But she got the sense it wouldn't help Patterson to hear it right then. Her friend needed to view Borden as nothing more than a villain, to help herself cope with his betrayal. Maybe in a few more months, when the sting had faded a little, she'd be ready for a more nuanced discussion.

"I hate that he hurt you," she said instead. "Are you sure you want to watch this? I can give you the highlights later, if you want."

"No, I need to be here." Patterson sighed. "I hate that he gets to walk away from all this, but if he hadn't helped us stop Shepherd, I guess we'd all be dead by now, so…"

"I heard Kurt and Nas talking earlier, about making deportation back to England part of his immunity deal. He's going to lose everything he built here, on top of everything he lost in Afghanistan." Jane hesitated. "I know it's not jail time, but at least it's punishment of a different kind."

"Yeah." Patterson stared at Borden through the one-way glass.

Jane followed her gaze. Her former therapist and friend looked unnerved and unthreatening in his medical gown. Still having had no opportunity to shave, he was far removed from the poised and professional man Jane remembered from the therapy room.

As Weitz began the interrogation, Borden's gaze kept straying in their direction, though the glass just looked like a mirror from the other side. Jane was pretty sure he wasn't looking at his own reflection, however, and Patterson was growing tenser by the moment.

"He knows I'm watching."

Jane wanted to reassure her, but Patterson knew as well as she did that Borden would be able to guess. "He probably suspects you're in here, yeah."

"Did Weller tell you I told Borden about Shepherd's links to the Douglas Winter leak? That indirectly, his wife died because of Shepherd?" Patterson straightened, striving for a more confident demeanour, even though Borden couldn't see her.

"Borden told me, when I spoke to him yesterday. After you redirected the missile."

"I made him cry. I broke him, like he broke me. And for a few minutes, it felt good. I felt like I'd taken the power he has over me back. But it didn't last."

"I'm sorry," Jane murmured. "I wish he'd never had the chance to make you feel powerless in the first place."

"I really loved him, Jane." Patterson's expression seemed almost haunted. "And now I question my judgment about everything, because he brought me breakfast in bed and told me how happy I made him, and at the same time, he knew there was going to be a nuclear blast that wiped out not just me, but my family and friends and millions of innocent people, and I just…"

"He had everyone fooled. I know that doesn't make it easier, but it isn't some kind of personal failing that you didn't see through him."

Patterson shrugged and fell silent, watching the interrogation, and Jane followed her cue, not wanting to press on her friend's bruised heart.

Was it her imagination, or was Weitz less of a smartass with his questioning now that Borden was in the chair? Maybe she was just being sensitive. Then again, Borden had never interacted with Weitz before today, and Jane had made her antagonism towards him plain, so he'd probably been happy to push her buttons.

The interrogation began to draw to a close, and Patterson glanced at her phone. "Maybe I should just get back to work. I don't know what I was hoping to get out of watching this."

Jane opened her mouth to respond, just as Borden said, "I have a request, if I may."

Patterson froze.

"You can ask," Weitz replied, his tone dubious.

"Since I'm wired up to the polygraph already, there are a couple of questions I'd like you to ask. The truth of the answers probably won't be of much interest to the US justice system, but I hope they'd give some peace of mind to the people I was close to within the FBI."

Jane could tell from the tense set of Kurt's shoulders that he wasn't happy with this development, and she privately hoped that Weitz would shut Borden down. But after a moment's thought, Weitz got up from his chair and brought his notepad and pen to Borden.

"You guys have guns, in case he tries anything, right?" Weitz looked around at Kurt and Nas, then ripped open the Velcro cuffs on the chair. "Write 'em down. No more than three. And for the record, I'm only allowing this because if I drag this out ten more minutes, I get to skip a really boring video conference."

Jane glanced at Patterson, who had noticeably paled. "You don't have to listen to this," she quietly reminded her friend.

"If I don't, I'll just worry about it until I give in and watch the video footage," Patterson said, sighing. "Might as well just stay here and get it over with."

Kurt leaned over and murmured something inaudible to Nas, then left the room. Jane was unsurprised to see him walk into the observation room a few moments later.

"Hey." He came to stand protectively next to Patterson's chair, brushing his fingers over Jane's shoulder on the way. "Are you okay with this?"

Patterson gave him a smile that looked a little nauseated. "Doesn't matter what I think, if Weitz is okay with it, right?"

"I'll shut him down right now, if that's what you want," Kurt said, and despite her worry for Patterson, Jane suppressed a smile at the 'protective big brother' vibe he was giving off.

"It's fine. Now that he's thrown that out there, I'd rather not wonder what he wanted, every day for the rest of my life." She looked from Kurt to Jane. "I'm not made of glass, you two. I can handle it."

"Yeah, but you shouldn't have to," Kurt said, before Jane could express the same sentiment.

"Thanks for caring about me. Really. But you should get back in there."

With a nod and a final, worried glance, Kurt left the room, squeezing Jane's shoulder briefly on the way out.

Patterson gave Jane a rueful smile. "At least you two are still solid."

I don't know what I'd do without him, Jane thought, but bit back the words before she could say them. Patterson was suffering without the partner she'd thought it was safe to love and trust—by responding that way, Jane would only be rubbing salt in her emotional wound.

"We're here for you. Tasha and Reade, too. Maybe even Nas."

"I know." After a moment's quiet, Patterson added, "I have a bottle of Scotch in my lab, if you guys want to join me for a sneaky drink in Zero Division this afternoon. I would have broken it out yesterday, but there were too many people in the lab, and Tasha and Reade were still in DC, so…"

"You really think Kurt's gonna be okay with us getting drunk during work hours?" Jane raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't mean drunk—just one shot to celebrate not being dead. I know you need to go see Roman after work tonight, and you'll be getting him settled at your safehouse tomorrow night, right? But we deserve a tiny celebration, after all we've been through." She shrugged. "I figured if you wanted to do it, Kurt might relax the rules, just this once."

"I'll see what I can do." If it put a genuine smile back on Patterson's face, even for a moment, Jane would even pull a little guilt trip on Kurt. Just this once. "And maybe in a few days, if Roman's up to it, we could do something at my safehouse. I'd really like you all to meet him."

"Yeah. That'd be nice."

Weitz's voice interrupted their conversation. "Okay, if everyone's ready to start again…?"

Any progress Jane had made in loosening Patterson up vanished in an instant.

"First question requested by Nigel Thornton: 'Were you asked by Ellen Briggs or anyone in her organisation to begin a romantic relationship with Agent Patterson?'"

"No," Borden said, his attention once more drifting to the one-way glass. "That wasn't part of the plan."

Patterson didn't move or react in any way. Jane's heart ached for her. Did Borden actually think this was helping?

"For any interested parties, that answer registers as true." Weitz paused for a second, then continued, "Second question: 'Did you sabotage any of the investigations you helped the FBI conduct?'"

"No, I didn't. I was just there to observe Jane and Weller, and report any suspicions about Jane's loyalty to Shepherd."

"True again. Third question: 'Were your feelings for Agent Patterson genuine?'" Jane couldn't see Weitz's face clearly from this angle, but his tone of voice made it obvious that he was rolling his eyes.

"Yes. I love her."

A tear rolled down Patterson's cheek, but she didn't move to brush it away. Oh, Patterson…

"And for whatever it's worth, that's also true. Well, now that little soap opera's concluded…" Weitz began to wind up the interrogation, but Jane tuned him out, moving her chair closer to Patterson's.

"Hey, come here."

Patterson leaned into Jane's embrace, stifling a sob. Jane held on tightly, her mind straying back to the day they'd caught David's murderer, when she'd offered the same kind of comfort. It made no difference that this time the man she'd loved was in the next room, alive and well—Patterson was heartbroken, grieving all over again, while Weitz signed the immunity deal that would let Borden walk free.

For her part, Jane was torn between blinding anger at Borden and wrenching empathy for Patterson. Borden's play today had been entirely selfish, aimed at assuaging his own guilt. He might have convinced himself that Patterson, and the rest of them, would be comforted to know that he hadn't always been playing a role—but for the people he'd hurt, that fact didn't change anything.

"I'm so sorry," she murmured, rocking Patterson gently. "He never deserved you."

Patterson sat up, swiping tears from her cheeks as she composed herself. "No, he didn't," she agreed. "My brain already knows that. Now I just…just have to convince my heart that it's true."

Jane nodded. "It's a little early for that Scotch, but how about I grab us both a coffee while you hit the restroom and freshen up?"

"That'd be good. Thanks, Jane."

Patterson hesitated on the way to the door, staring at Borden through the glass for one more long, conflicted moment. Then she shook her head angrily and left, heading down the hall too fast for Jane to offer any parting words of comfort.

Jane could only hope that Borden would never attempt to contact his former lover again—and if she knew Kurt, he'd be cornering Borden before he left the building, in order to make sure that he never did. Hopefully, Borden's sense of self-preservation would warn him to stay away.

If not, Jane would. Patterson was part of her heart's family, and Jane would protect her, no matter what.

Author's Note: Gotta protect our Patty! Part of me wishes I'd written someone else into the fic as the mole, so that she and Borden could be happy, but things didn't work out that way. Anyway, that's the last of Borden for this fic, and no bullet wounds for Patty, so yay! And yes, the Borden questions were a little bit soap opera-y, and it wasn't really realistic that he got to ask - but this is fanfic, so I'm being a little bit self-indulgent here.

Next up: Kurt and Jane go up against Shepherd in the interrogation room, and then get to visit Roman...