A/N: Sorry it's been so long between posts but this is still happening, going to make it to the end eventually... Got my mind blown by the finale (in a good way) so lots to write about that, but wanted to be thorough and do scenes for all the episodes before it too. This one is set after 5.8 (obviously!).
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She sat in the back of the wagon, completely numb at Rich's words. A million thoughts, so many emotions flooded through her but Jane couldn't react, her mind and body refusing to believe that Patterson was gone.
If Patterson was dead then they were basically out of hope. She was the brains of the entire operation, the one that came up with ways to denature ZIP or track her missing husband. And more than that, she was central to everyone on the team.
Lebron.
Fuck.
That memory flashed through her mind along with a hundred more and she could feel the tears building up behind the dam but still she couldn't let it go. Jane glanced at Kurt and Rich, each bawling in their own ways and she wanted to reach for them, wanted to hold her husband and let him cry into her shoulder.
But she was shackled to the floor and her body wouldn't let her move anyhow. The pain of losing Patterson had seized her muscles and made everything slack and immovable. A hundred memories flashed through her mind, a cascade of years, everything she'd ever known. Patterson had been there from the start of her existence, had seen it all, saved her life countless times.
Jane cringed, shrank into herself as she thought of all the pain her existence had caused her friend. The tattoos had led to David's death. And she'd recruited Borden, brought him into Patterson's life. All of which had led them to being on the run, being away from her family.
And now this. It couldn't be true, Jane thought. They couldn't lose like this. They couldn't lose her like this.
Devastation and guilt tore through her, crushing her under the weight of it all. She felt herself recede; the world suddenly seeming blurry and unreal.
She had just started floating away on a stream of ice cold pain when the slightest of touches interrupted her dissociative state. Just the tip of a finger against her knee. But it was him, she didn't need to look.
Just as she'd been tumbling away, Jane fell back into herself and discovered that she'd curled herself into a tight ball, the best she could while shackled to the ground. Her chest was still tight with emotion but she couldn't let it out and it felt like she was suffocating from the inside out.
But the barest of touches, it made her look up at him, focus on his watery blue eyes, his tear-streaked cheeks. A glance of his thumb, against her knee; the furthest he could reach.
"Jane," he croaked. "Breathe."
Kurt looked devastated, in a way she'd rarely seen before. Still, when his eyes met hers, they were filled with concern. Even though he had to see it too, that this was all her fault.
She was on the verge of emotional combustion, teetering on the edge. And then her body decided to listen to him; heaved as she finally let it all out in a wail of despair.
It was a sound she'd never heard herself make before, fuelled by a lifetime of sorrow and regret. None of this would have happened if she hadn't taken the ZIP. Her teammates would all still be alive and she would have self-destructed in relatively short order, sacrificed herself for the cause like a proper terrorist.
"I'm sorry," she said, the words tumbling out of her unbidden. "I'm so so sorry."
"This is all my fault. I did this. She's gone because of me."
Kurt's thumb pressed into her skin even harder as she spilled all of her regrets, his touch gaining urgency in its request for her attention.
Her guilt tried to push it away, deflect it. But Weller was insistent as ever, even when he could barely physically reach her. And no matter how hard she tried to ignore it, that tiny spot of warmth on the side of her knee kept her tethered to him, reminded her that he'd never let her go.
Little by little he reeled her in until she wasn't pulling away from him anymore, stopped trying to curl into non-existence. As if emerging from a dense cloud, Jane found herself back in her body, sobbing and reaching for him, leaning towards his outstretched hand.
As her senses slowly returned to her, Jane realized that Kurt had been talking to her the entire time, a stream of soft noises, full of reassurance. Even through his tears and his own grief, he'd managed to find her in the depths of her own despair.
"Please don't blame yourself," he said, grasping her hand as she finally came close enough. "I hate hearing you say that. This is not on you, Jane. We're all in this together."
He was hopelessly good to her, even in the most difficult of situations. So persistent he was unbelievable.
She couldn't completely comply; it wasn't in her to not blame herself. But Jane responded anyhow, squeezing his hand tightly in hers as she finally looked up at her husband, reaching for her from across the aisle.
Kurt was devastated, crushed. Of course he was. She knew how much Patterson meant to him, how much she meant to all of them. That was part of what had been so special about her, she held them together; was loved by all of them so dearly, had been there for every one of them through the toughest of times.
And finally that pulled Jane out of her stupor; she still needed to be there for Kurt, for all of them that were left. There was no hiding from it in personal guilt, giving up and emotionally disconnecting from the world. She had to face her regrets and fight past them, at least enough to stay present for her partner, her team.
"Together," she said, repeating his last sentiment.
"We're going to finish this together."
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Being back on the FBI jet was fucked up in every way. It was both so familiar and not; Weller had never fathomed being led into the back of the plane as a prisoner, shackled to his seat. But there he was, about to be brought home a captured terrorist.
What the hell had happened?
How had it come to this?
Kurt closed his eyes as the plane took off, tried to digest his new reality. But all he could think of was the unfathomable loss they'd just suffered; kept picturing the look of devastation on Rich's face when he'd been brought into the van.
They were his team. And despite not having been in charge for a long time, and relinquishing decision-making control since they'd been on the run, Weller still thought of them that way.
Losing Reade had been hard, especially with all the time on his own afterwards. It had brought him back to losing Mayfair just after she'd fallen from her position as AD of the NYO; had made him feel so alone again. But it had been a miracle that they hadn't all died in the drone attack and somehow that had helped Kurt come to terms with his grief, his survivor's guilt.
Patterson though. He couldn't even fathom that she could be gone. She'd always been the innocent one, the one they all worried about after everything that had happened to her. Even after she'd left for California, made her millions; he still thought of her as the one he needed to protect.
His mind automatically flashed through so many moments between them; how she had always kept him in line even back when he'd been emotionally incompetent. All of them would have died many times over if not for her, hearing her steady voice on comms had gotten him through countless close calls. He couldn't believe he'd never again hear her tell him how to disarm a bomb or save the world.
He kept falling through that hole of grief, down the dark slide he'd known most of his life. The one he'd finally climbed out of when he figured out how love and be loved. But now it was starting to become overwhelming in the face of everything.
Kurt looked across the aisle at Jane, who'd helped him finally come to terms with his broken emotional set; stunted from childhood trauma and inadequate parenting. He hated being so far away from her, knowing that he might never see her again after they got off the plane in New York. They couldn't even talk; that had been made clear when he'd tried to speak to Jane earlier and Ivy's goon had casually struck her in the gut with a baton for his transgression.
Weller had felt his blood pressure fly through the roof at the pained sound Jane had made, pulled at his restraints enough to make abrasions on his wrists. But then she'd recovered her breath quickly and shot him a plea with her eyes.
Calm down. Please.
It had been hard to gather control of his emotions but when he finally stopped seeing red Kurt had to admit, it was a good strategy to keep them quiet for the plane ride. His lips were firmly shut now; he wasn't going to give them any reason to hurt her.
Watching his wife at the moment, Weller was just thankful he wasn't wearing a sack over his head. At least he could still see her; they had never needed words to communicate.
Jane's eyes were a deep sea green; he could see anger and sorrow and guilt flash through them over and over again as she shot him worried looks.
It drove him crazy that she blamed herself for the mess they were in and seemed unable to let that thought go. Not only was Madeline entirely responsible for their situation, the rest of them had made their own choices along the way too. Putting herself in that bag without a single memory in her head had led to a lot of things, good and bad. But it didn't make her responsible for all of them.
It certainly didn't make her responsible for Patterson and Reade. If anything he was the one that had brought them into the situation, kept them in it.
And all the other stuff. Well, Jane had a real tendency to overlook the good for the bad, could never seem to escape her past and the shame it elicited; especially when things went wrong. Which he understood, obviously. But he hated it nonetheless.
He had seen her save so many lives, risking her own for each of them countless times. She was selfless in all of her incarnations, even when raised to be a killer, emotionally abused all her life. As destructive her original intentions were, Weller had to admit that things were a lot different once your own government had tried to murder you. And even as hateful and destructive as Remi had been, she had been willing to sacrifice everything for justice to be served.
Looking at her now, he could still see the steel will that chose to erase her entire life for a chance to change the system. But what worried him was the way in which that energy would be directed once they were back in America and dealing with Madeline's version of justice.
Without question she'd give herself up if there was any chance he could have a life with his daughter. The problem was, he thought of Bethany as theirs, in a way she'd never allowed herself to. Not that Jane didn't love Bee, miss her too. He knew that she did, knew she had always looked forward to the toddler's visits as much as he did. The problem was she had seen herself as an obstacle in his relationship with Bethany instead of an essential part of it. Ever since she'd run away so that he wouldn't miss out on his daughter's life but then he had anyways, she felt guilt around the topic. So of course this second stint of being on the run had really flared up all those emotions for her. And through it all she'd been so conscious of his need to be back with Bee but she never brought up her own sadness about being apart from his daughter or even her own. It was like she thought she had no claim to them, that she didn't deserve to miss them because she hadn't been there for them.
Weller tried to shake the bleakness from his mind but there was nowhere for it to go. Things were about bad as they could get and he didn't see any way out. All their allies were either dead or on the run. And even if they could get free, they didn't have any proof against Madeline, no hope of ever clearing their names. At best it would mean a life on the run, away from his kid.
But really Kurt knew he was most likely going to end up at a CIA black site; it's where the government sent terrorists after all. A little part of him even felt like he deserved it. Not for anything Madeline related of course. But he'd let it happen to Jane, hadn't done nearly enough to find out where the CIA had taken her; at least partly because he knew the answer and didn't want to face it. And if she hadn't previously put herself through SERE training and somehow been able to access it even after the ZIP… She would never have escaped; he wouldn't have ever seen her again.
Just like this plane ride was likely one the last times he'd ever be able to look at her.
His heart was so heavy it felt like it sat in the pit of his stomach. He kept flashing back to their last interaction with Patterson, how adorable both Jane and Patterson had been about the virtual pets. Kurt felt the weight of it crushing him, tugged at his restraints just to release some of his pent up sorrow and rage.
He yanked at his cuffs until his skin had scraped through, getting some emotional release from causing himself pain. He hadn't felt this kind of darkness in a long time, had forgotten how hollow he could feel about his existence.
For a moment Weller closed his eyes, nearly tumbled into his despair. But there was some force competing against the pull of the dark, that refused to let him waste any time he had left with her. Even if all he could do was look, he wasn't going to have the opportunity for long.
So he forced his eyes back open and swivelled his head to obtain the best view of Jane; only to find her already looking back at him magnetically, her face as expressive as usual.
I'm worried about you, her delicate features proclaimed
Don't be, I'm okay, he indicated with a slight shake of his head and a sad smile.
He could tell she didn't believe him, her eyebrows heavy with skepticism as she held his gaze, studied him closely. And he could easily see what her own eyes were trying to tell him, he had seen that particular expression too many times lately.
I'm sorry. For everything.
Again he shook his head, more vehemently this time.
No sorries, he said with the frown that came automatically to his brow. Please stop blaming yourself.
For a moment Jane moved to turn away, look out the window but he wouldn't let her eyes go, seized them with his steady gaze. He could see her irises flash between hazel and jade, flicker as they tried to escape his pull.
Finally, Jane silently sighed and bit the corner of her lip as she gave up the fight and faced him again. Her eyes had a shimmer to them as she offered him a small smile while still chewing on her bottom lip.
It was one of his favourite looks on her. A hint of sorry but flush full of affection. And even in that moment, heavy with grief and hopelessness, warmth rushed through him as he held her with his eyes.
I love you, he said, his head tilting just so, a small furrow still in his brow.
I love you too, she replied with a particular squint, a twitch of her lip.
The warmth flowed through him again, pushed back the darkness for another moment. Because no matter how bleak things looked, he still had this, they still had each other. Even if he never saw her after this plane ride, Kurt knew their love would last until the end. Just like the rest of their conversation, that was unspoken but tacitly understood. Yet he still kept her fixed in his gaze for the rest of the flight, didn't want to miss one second of the time he had left with her. If this was it then Weller was going to make the best of it, shower her with all the love he could, even from a plane's width away.