Author's Note: Hello to the people who are still reading this, 107 chapters and three years later! Thank you so much for sticking with me. This fic is almost, almost done (yes, really, this time)! A lot of stuff gets tied up in this chapter, so I hope it doesn't come across as too rushed.

"How long did my polygraph take, the other day?" Jane fought the urge to get up and pace the room, her eyes on the clock at the bottom of her computer screen.

"I dunno, an hour, maybe? We were in SIOC, so we didn't see you come out." Zapata slid some paperwork into her desk drawer, then leaned back, studying Jane. "Are you worried Roman won't pass his?"

"I guess part of me is. Or that they'll say he lied when he didn't. I don't know." Jane fidgeted. "I just hate that they wouldn't let me observe. After what happened yesterday, I wouldn't put it past the government to bribe Weitz into taking away Roman's immunity deal."

"What exactly did happen yesterday? All I know is that when Weller got down here this morning, he went, 'Nas, what the hell is Omaha?', and then they went into the meeting room for a while. When they came back out, Weller was glaring even more than he usually does."

Jane suppressed a shudder at the memory of the meeting. "Long story short, I made my points to them, handed over the list of files Nas and Patterson gave me, told them that if any of us went mysteriously missing, the entire world would know all of the secrets we'd found out while we were working on this case... Things were getting pretty ugly until Olvera reined the rest of them in. Whatever Project Omaha is, it's something she's desperate to keep quiet."

"That explains the stack of non-disclosure forms Brianna tried to get us to sign this morning, before Nas told us not to." Reade carefully placed mugs of coffee on Jane and Zapata's desks, then returned to his seat. "I don't even know if I want the details."

"I'll be happy to just stick to simple cases for a few months. If Omaha is some big government conspiracy, someone else can handle it," Zapata said.

"I'll drink to that," Jane said, lifting her mug in an ironic toast.

For a moment they were quiet, distracted by hot beverages. Then Jane's attention drifted back to the clock, anxiety twisting in her gut. "They've had him in there ninety minutes already."

What if he comes back out in handcuffs? What if Weitz decides Keaton should take him? What if—?

"I'm sure they're just being thorough," Reade said. "Hey, the time will go way more slowly if you're staring at the clock. Just try and distract yourself."

"Yeah, he's got Kurt and Nas in there with him, right?" Zapata added. "Kurt knows what Roman means to you. He won't let Weitz screw him over."

"I know. I just…" Jane shook her head helplessly. "He's my little brother. I have some memories back now, of our childhood in the orphanage. He's suffered so much, and Shepherd took advantage of him. He deserves a chance to start a better life."

"Is that what he wants, too?" Reade asked.

"I guess the polygraph will tell us," Zapata said, with a warning look at her partner that Jane didn't miss.

God, I hope so. I don't think I'm wrong about him, but…I've been so wrong before. I don't blame Reade for having reservations.

Another twenty minutes passed, and Jane was beginning to consider storming into the polygraph room and demanding to know what was taking so damn long, when the door opened. Jane was already out of her seat by the time she registered that Roman was first through the door, grimacing with pain, but quickly masking it again.

"That took forever—what happened?" she demanded, intercepting him.

He grinned, triumph brightening his whole demeanour. "That guy's a dick—but I passed."

Speechless with relief, Jane wrapped her arms around him and held on tightly, closing her eyes. He's safe. I really turned him. I wasn't wrong about him. Thank god…

"Ow. Ease up, will you?" Roman said, flinching in her embrace. "Still recovering, here."

Jane released him, flooded with remorse. "Sorry. You should sit down. Tell me what happened."

"Weitz was…Weitz," Kurt said, and for the first time, Jane registered that he and Nas had both come in with her brother. "We had to rein him in once or twice."

"But the polygraph showed that Roman's no longer a threat to the United States, and the DOJ has officially signed off on his immunity." Nas smiled, handing a document to Roman, who glanced at it and passed it to Jane. "Clean slate."

Jane stared down at the written confirmation of her brother's freedom, the words blurring as her eyes filled with tears of joy and relief.

"Thank you so much, Nas… Kurt…" She shook her head, unable to stop smiling. "For us both to have immunity, after everything that's happened… It means more to me than I can say."

"You don't have to say it." Kurt squeezed her shoulder, then turned his attention to her brother. "Roman—as Deputy Director of the New York Office of the FBI, I want to make you an offer. Would you be willing to hire on as a consultant for the remainder of this case? We'd pay you our standard rate, plus we'll allow you to stay at Jane's old safehouse when you're healed enough—just until you get enough financial stability to be independent, since your accounts were frozen along with Shepherd's."

Roman blinked, looking from Kurt to Jane and back again. "Work for the FBI? I appreciate everything you've done for me, Weller, but I don't know if I—"

"It's the same job you've been doing for us for free, only you'd check in with Patterson for assignments. You can work from home, prioritise your healing, but get paid for it."

"Don't think of it as working for the FBI," Jane said. "Think of it as taking what they owe you for seizing all your assets and taking away your home."

"Don't try and play me, Jane." There was a sharp edge to Roman's tone, but before Jane could apologise, he sighed, sinking down into the nearest chair. "Can I think about it and get back to you? I'm kind of tired."

"Sure." Kurt seemed unruffled by the less-than-enthusiastic response to his offer.

Nas had wandered over to her laptop and begun checking her email, but now she approached them again. "I've just had word from Washington, DC. About Shepherd."

Jane's relief immediately receded, her stomach lurching with apprehension. "What did they say?"

"They've agreed to allow Shepherd a trial. For national security reasons, it won't be a public trial, and whatever records are made during it will be very highly classified—but it'll be a trial, and when she's convicted, she'll be imprisoned in a maximum security facility."

"No black site?" Jane asked, afraid to believe that they'd actually won.

"They won't rule it out for at some point in the distant future—but they're willing to let justice run its course for now."

Jane pulled out a chair next to Roman's and sat down heavily, her sleepless night finally catching up with her. "We did it."

Kurt rested his hand on the nape of her neck for a moment, lending her silent support, but then stepped back. "We'll give you two a moment. Nas?"

Jane watched them move away before turning to her brother. "So that's it. Shepherd's getting a fair trial."

Roman's eyes were troubled. The ruling from DC had put a damper on the triumph of his immunity, and he was pale with pain and weariness. "You said you'd do it, but I never thought you'd convince them. Thank you. I know you did this for me."

"Not just for you. For myself, as well." Jane shrugged. "Do you want to visit her before she gets transferred? She's in Borden's old cell, just through there."

"Yeah. But then I need to go back to Weller's, before I fall down."

Knowing how much a display of weakness would cost his morale, Jane stood up immediately. "Come on. I don't plan to see her again, unless she's there when I testify against her in court, so this will be goodbye from me."

"I…might visit her in prison," Roman said, getting to his feet with an effort, "but not anytime soon."

After clearing it with Kurt and Nas, Jane led Roman to the door leading to Shepherd's cell. "Don't let her get under your skin. You know what buttons she's gonna push, right?"

He smiled bitterly. "Pretty sure, yeah."

"What she thinks doesn't matter anymore. She lost the right to call us her children when she got us involved in a genocide attempt." I don't want her to turn you against me, after everything we've been through. Please, don't let her.

"Let's just go in," Roman said shortly.

Jane swallowed hard, nodded, and pushed open the door.

Shepherd's eyes narrowed as she noticed Roman, She rose from the bed, dragged the chair inside the cell closer to the clear barrier that separated them, then took her seat as regally as a queen. Jane and Roman seated themselves opposite her, and for a moment, no one spoke.

Your move, Shepherd.

"You've got some nerve, visiting me here." Her words were for Roman alone. "We both know you'd never face me, if I wasn't in this cell. You're a coward, plotting in the shadows to betray everything I taught you."

Roman seemed calm, but instinct—or maybe Remi's memories—told Jane that he was anything but. "Let me know when you're done."

"What would your sister think?" Shepherd asked.

Oh, no, you don't get to pull that one. "His sister is sitting right here, and she's proud of him."

Shepherd finally turned her withering gaze on Jane. It was difficult not to flinch at the contempt she saw there.

"You're not his sister. Remi died for my cause when she took the ZIP and went undercover. We all know that. You're just a corrupted echo. I thought my Remi had a stronger sense of who she was, one the ZIP would never be able to erase. But the drug took her from us, and now we're left with you. An FBI puppet. Remi would be disgusted with you. Both of you."

Before Jane could respond, Roman spoke, his words tight with anger. "If Remi is dead, then at least she's at peace. She wanted justice. She wanted to put right the atrocities committed by this government. But she would never have gone along with your plan, not once the collateral damage got out of control. I told you that more than once, and you didn't listen to me. You never did."

"And now nothing will change. Remi died for no reason. You have no family left, because I sure as hell have no son."

Roman flinched, and anger boiled though Jane's system. The instinct to protect him ran deeper than memory, and she refused to let Shepherd damage him any more than she already had.

"You wouldn't have had a son anyway,"she said. "Your plan was for all of us to die. What kind of mother would sacrifice her children like that, and condemn millions of other families to die of radiation poisoning and tumours, the way your family did in the seventies and eighties?"

Shepherd raised her chin and said nothing, giving Jane a hard, icy stare. No matter how emotional she got, she wouldn't forget that everything she said would be logged and analysed by the FBI. She was smart enough to know she was never going to walk free, but too proud to confess anything.

"You lost control of Remi because she knew exactly who she was," Roman told Shepherd. "She joined the military as soon as she could, just to get away from you. You had to scheme for years, trying to get her back, and you couldn't just let her go. It killed you that her purpose wasn't the same as yours, so you twisted it."

"All right—if I'm such a terrible mother, why did you never leave?" Shepherd asked, folding her arms.

"I did. Or didn't you notice?" Roman gestured to their surroundings.

"I was the best mother I possibly could have been. I freed you from that hellhole near Cape Town. I brought you to the States, when they didn't know what to do with such broken, vicious children. I fed you, clothed you, defended you when you lost control of yourself at school. I taught you how to survive in a world that doesn't give a damn about you. And you repay me with betrayal."

Roman was tense and pale, and Jane surreptitiously checked his shirt for signs of bloodstains. His wound had to be agonising, but he was completely focused on Shepherd.

"You made us compete for your affections," he told her. "You made us injure each other, then stitch each other's wounds. Sneak up and attack each other, so we could never feel safe, not even in our own home. We were kids, and we didn't know what was real. You didn't help us get over what the orphanage did to us. You doubled down." Roman hit the barrier with the heel of his hand, so suddenly that both Jane and Shepherd flinched.

"You were too broken to fix. You were a pair of little murderers when I took you in, you know that. I worked with what I had." Shepherd laughed harshly. "Make me into a storybook villain in your mind, if that makes you feel better, Roman. Who knows? If you get out of control again, maybe Jane will give you some ZIP. Mould you into the perfect brother."

Jane's stomach flipped, and she clenched her hands into fists. "I would never do that! That's your problem, Shepherd—you need to control people, make them think what you think, do what you say. You couldn't just love us. All the things you did for us—feeding us, teaching us, even hugging us—you did all of it to make us loyal little soldiers who'd serve your cause. I don't remember if you loved us at all. I don't even know if you know what love really is."

"Ah, let me guess. Weller showed you the power of love, and now your life is rainbows and candy. You're pathetic."

"My life is—" Jane bit down on the words, swallowing them with an effort. If she mentioned her PTSD, Shepherd would only scoff at her 'weakness'. "Forget it. I'm done. You're being transferred to supermax today, and I won't be visiting. If you have anything left to say to me, this is your last chance."

For the first time since they'd arrested her, Shepherd looked uncertain. "The CIA will have me in a black site by the time the sun goes down. You know that as well as I do."

"No." Jane smiled with cold satisfaction. "I went to Capitol Hill. I met with a roomful of people who were desperate to have you tortured. I put on a little pressure, and I got what I wanted. You're standing trial for your crimes."

Shepherd showed no signs of relief or gratitude. "Silencing your guilty conscience?"

"Returning a favour." Jane stood up. "You got us out of one terrible place, twenty-one years ago. Now I've stopped you from ending up somewhere just as bad. We're even."

"We'll never be even," Shepherd snapped. "You owe me more than you can ever comprehend."

"Roman?" Jane said, touching her brother's shoulder.

"Can I have a minute with her? Alone?" he asked.

More than anything, Jane wanted to pull her brother out of Shepherd's venomous presence, but she reminded herself of her earlier words. You can't control him. All you can do is love him.

Reluctantly, she nodded. "They'll still be recording everything," she told him.

"I know."

Jane stepped back, towards the door. "Goodbye, Shepherd."

Shepherd shook her head. "I hope you remember every second of the suffering you've forgotten."

Jane stared at her mother for one more moment, taking a final look at the ruthless, damaged, defiant woman who'd raised and manipulated her. Then she turned and left the cell, unsure if she was more relieved or angry.

Would I ever give Roman ZIP, if he went rogue? I want to say I wouldn't, but if it was the only way to protect him… I don't know.

Even as she shrugged off the thought, Jane knew it would return to her over and over again, in quiet moments, when she didn't expect it. Maybe it would bother her for the rest of her life.

Damn you, Shepherd.

As Jane re-entered Zero Division's main area, Kurt stepped away from the surveillance footage to approach her, leaving Nas to eavesdrop on Roman alone.

Every facet of Jane's body radiated agitation. "Ugh! She's just so—"

"I know. I heard." He gestured to the conference room. "Come on. You need to decompress a little."

Jane let herself be guided, but shook her head when Kurt offered her a seat, beginning to pace the room instead. "God knows what she's saying to Roman right now. I didn't want to leave them alone, but after what I said about her controlling him, I couldn't just make him leave."

Kurt sat down alone, hoping she'd calm down enough to join him after she vented some of the stress she was feeling. "Nas is listening in on them. She'll pull the plug on the visit if Roman starts looking out of his depth." I hope.

"I thought that if I faced her, and showed her that I hadn't turned into the government patsy she thinks I am… I don't know. I thought I would feel better, somehow. But the only positive thing I feel is relief that I never have to speak to her again. The rest of me is just so tired and angry."

Oh, Jane.

Kurt didn't know how to comfort her, his own weariness taking its toll on his mind, making him slow to respond. Last night had been sleep-deprived for all three occupants of his apartment. Jane's encounter with Keaton had left its mark on her nightmares.

Jane sagged suddenly, leaning against the wall. "I'm sorry. I should be focusing on the good things, I know. No black site for Shepherd, and Roman's immunity deal—both of them are important, and positive…"

"Talking to Shepherd would ruin anyone's day," he told her, holding out his hand. "Feel however you need to feel."

Jane joined him at last, curving her fingers around his hand as she took a seat. "I'll get it all out with the therapist, after work. How was Roman's polygraph result? I know he passed, but…"

"Well, he's not gonna be saluting the flag and saying the Pledge of Allegiance every morning, but negative emotions about the United States isn't the same as terrorism. Weitz tried pushing a few buttons, but Nas and I reminded him that we weren't in a courtroom, or in front of Congress, and he stopped grandstanding."

Jane smiled wanly. "Thank you. For looking out for Roman. And for offering him a job. You didn't mention that you were planning that."

"It's only fair he gets paid for the work he's doing. Especially since he should really be resting and healing, not cracking codes." Kurt shrugged. "It felt right to offer, even though I doubt he'll take me up on it."

"It's a good offer, but…yeah. I wouldn't hold your breath." Jane leaned against him, sighing. "Are you gonna talk to Shepherd before she's transferred?"

That was the question he'd been asking himself earlier, while Jane had been visiting her mother. "Not sure. I still wish I knew what made her fixate on me like she did, but I get the feeling she already thinks she answered that question."

"Well, it's not like she's being transferred far. You can always visit her in supermax if you think of better ways to ask. Speaking of asking things—what did Nas say about Omaha?"

Kurt fought irritation at the reminder. His conversation with Nas had been frustrating, and not at all illuminating. "She wouldn't go into specifics. I'd ask Patterson to do some digging, but…from what Nas said, it would lead to a fight we can't ever win."

"I know we've had our problems, but I need you to trust me here, Kurt. I'm doing you a favour by not telling you. You think the Sandstorm case was hard? If you went on this impossible crusade, they would destroy your reputation, go after your team and your family, and if you still didn't drop it, they'd make you disappear. Just let this one go. Please."

"Who are 'they'?"

"You met them yesterday. And that's all I'm saying."

Nas' words troubled him, but the idea of subjecting his team and Jane to further trauma, when they were already reeling in Sandstorm's wake, didn't sit well with him either. Leaving this stone unturned made him feel inexplicably guilty, as though he was somehow allowing an injustice to be done. But his protective instincts were stronger than his stubborn streak—at least, for now.

"You think Nas is involved, somehow?" Jane asked.

"That would explain how she knows about it," he muttered, shaking his head. "I dunno. Whatever Project Omaha is, it's important to the Office of National Intelligence. If those people we met yesterday are involved in criminal activity, and we go after them…"

"They'll take everything from us." Jane wrapped her arms around her midsection, a haunted expression crossing her face.

He nodded. "As much as I wish no one were above the law, if I arrested any one of them, they'd walk free within an hour, no matter what evidence I had."

"You're just one man. You can't change the way the game is rigged, Kurt." Jane squeezed his hand. "Remember what you said to me, back when I was angry about Lake Aurora? About our job having limits, and knowing the difference between law enforcement and activism?"

He'd forgotten, but her words brought the memory back. "Yeah. Thanks."

Jane stood up, tugging him out of his seat, too. For a long moment, they stood wrapped in each other's arms, and Kurt sighed. "We need a vacation."

"A long one," Jane agreed.

"Later this year, when the case is over and Roman's back on his feet, we'll go somewhere far away. Just us," he promised.

Jane drew back, gazing up at him with love in her eyes. "I'll hold you to that."

He kissed her softly, then reluctantly stepped back. "Come on. Let's go see if Roman's done with Shepherd."

As Jane opened the door, Patterson's voice floated towards them. "…heard today was a good day to celebrate, so…"

"Please tell me there's cake in that thing," Reade said.

"Well, it looks like cake," Zapata chimed in, "but how can we be sure without a thorough investigation?"

Kurt grinned at the confused expression on Roman's face. "This is the crack team who brought down Shepherd?" he asked Jane.

"They have hidden depths," Jane assured him. "Come on. Let me introduce you to the team properly before your detail gets here."

As introductions took place, and Patterson proudly served her latest cake, Kurt shook off some of his soul-deep weariness. A real vacation might be a few months away, but they had two victories to celebrate today. Even Shepherd's mind-games couldn't affect Kurt Weller's sweet tooth.

Author's Note: I might have gotten a little bit hungry towards the end of the chapter. :D Please let me know if you have any thoughts about the way things have turned out for Shepherd and Roman. I'm always excited to hear them!