Author's Note: I have a ton of important cleaning to do, which means of COURSE I have to write fanfic instead. Since we're now several episodes on from 4x07, please note that this was started before 4x08 aired, so it's not actually following canon. Oh, and for some reason I decided Eve didn't blow up, without checking the episode first. But hey, it makes a good plot device. (And if you're waiting for the angry sex, that will FINALLY be happening next chapter, I swear. I just needed to get them to a place where it was actually semi-plausible.)
It spoke volumes that Remi had actually gone to lie down when he'd suggested it. She'd gone so pale in the kitchen that Kurt been seriously worried for a second, but he knew she wouldn't react to sympathy well if he offered it. She was too suspicious of his motives, looking for the catch.
At least she'd allowed him to treat her wound. Seeing the haphazard strikethrough of his surname had been more than a little gut-wrenching. Remi was right—it did seem symbolic of the deterioration of their relationship since she'd reverted to her old self.
He moved from the front windows of the cabin's main room to the back, checking no one was creeping up out of the woods on foot.
Remi appeared to have all but passed out, and after quickly checking the pulse in her wrist, finding it regular, he decided to leave her be. She probably hadn't had much sleep, and the progression of her ZIP poisoning worried him. One trait Remi shared with Jane, though, was stubbornness. If he read her right, she'd try to give him the slip as soon as she felt well enough.
He wasn't going to allow that to happen.
It was strange, but he felt almost as though he'd already travelled this mental ground. When he'd first found out that Jane wasn't Taylor—that she'd been sent by Sandstorm to infiltrate his team—he'd been filled with rage and pain at what he'd seen as her betrayal. He'd directed at Jane everything he'd wanted to throw at Remi, but Remi hadn't been the one on the receiving end. Now that Remi was here, that old anger and hurt had resurfaced. The things she'd done to him…
Of course, it wasn't all bad. Remi had dug deep into his oldest wounds, plotting to claw them open without caring how it would affect him, but she'd also erased her own memory and had his name tattooed on her back. That had led to him finding the love of his life. Jane, I will get you back. I swear.
It was hard to imagine that erasing the memories of someone as toxic as Remi could have resulted in Jane, but he guessed that was the whole 'nature versus nurture' argument at work. The core of Remi was Jane as she'd been in the early days, still figuring out her place in the world. Kurt refused to believe that she could be gone now, but if he wanted to believe his wife was still in there, he had to accept that there was also good in Remi, deep down.
He watched the sleeping woman on the couch for a moment. In this moment, unguarded, she looked exactly like Jane when she slept. When she was awake, though, it was a different story. Now that she'd dropped the act, Remi blazed distrust and hatred. Even when he and Jane had been at their most emotionally distant, she'd never looked at him with the sneering contempt that Remi had shown him.
This had to go deeper than just the circumstances around Remi's awakening to find her life in ruins. Remi must have hated him long before that, and he was guessing Shepherd—and her unnerving, almost sexual, yet maternal pride in him—was at the root of it somewhere. How frequently had Shepherd mentioned him to Roman and Remi over the years?
Still, Remi had lived with Kurt for months, as she'd pointed out. She'd slept in his bed, eaten meals with him, listened to his thoughts, laughed and joked with him, pretended to love him. If her hatred really ran so deep, surely he would have seen it beneath her act? No one was that good an actor, not so consistently, for so long. It had only been since she'd learned she was terminal that she'd really begun to slip.
Maybe everyday life with him had started to get under her skin, the way Jane had gotten under his.
Careful. It had been a while since he'd heard Mayfair's voice at the back of his mind, warning him not to commit to a particular theory too soon. It wasn't anything as supernatural as a haunting—even when she'd still been alive, he'd sometimes had mental 'visitations' from her. Apparently, the cautious part of his mind was narrated by his mentor.
Thinking of Mayfair made him tense up even more. If not for Remi's schemes, Mayfair would still be alive and heading up the NYO. Not that Remi cared one bit about the world's loss. She'd told him not to see the world in black and white, but she completely failed to grasp the shades of grey around Mayfair's situation.
Kurt forced himself to stop thinking about Mayfair. Anger wouldn't bring her back, and more importantly, it wouldn't help him to get Jane back. Like it or not, he was stuck with Remi for now.
He just hoped one of them didn't have to kill the other before he found a way to Jane.
"Hey."
Remi smiled at Kurt's voice out of habit, used to waking up beside him and putting her Jane face on. She opened her eyes, raised her hand to touch his face, but then the pain in her arm and upper back reminded her that she wasn't waking up with him in their marital bed—she'd passed out on the couch and now he was crouched beside her.
She dropped her hand—and her smile—abruptly and struggled into a sitting position. She felt much better. Time to ditch Weller and get on the road as soon as she could.
"How're you feeling?" Weller asked, his genuine concern sending a pang of hurt through her. It's not for me. It's for Jane.
"Better," she said abruptly.
"Good." Weller held out her handgun by the barrel, offering the weapon so she could take it by the grip. Confused, Remi snatched it from his hand and checked the magazine, wondering if he'd taken the bullets while she slept. Everything seemed to be intact.
"While you slept, I got in touch with Patterson. She tracked down Eve and sent her an anonymous message with our coordinates. We probably have about twenty minutes left to plan our defence."
Remi resisted the urge to hit him in the face—barely. "Are you insane? Why would you do this?"
"Because you can't keep running from your problems forever. Eve was gonna find you again at some point. At least here we can plan an ambush."
For a long moment, Remi stared at him. Then she cursed under her breath and got to her feet. "You're a pain in the ass, Weller."
"The feeling's mutual." He leaned back against the wall and watched her roll back the dusty rug on the floor of the cabin.
Remi yanked up the trapdoor in the floor and let out a sigh of relief when she saw the plastic tub of C4 she'd stashed there last time she'd visited. "I'm assuming you know how to set up perimeter tripwires?"
He shot her a quick, savage smile that set her pulse racing. "Good call. I'll take the north and the east side, you do the south and west."
He plucked supplies from the box and disappeared out the front door before she could reply, leaving her shaking her head at his complete gullibility. She could be out of here in less than a minute, and he'd have to face them all down alone. He probably wouldn't survive.
On the other hand, he was right—this was her best chance to get Eve off her back for good. If she up and left, letting Weller get killed, she'd probably have to face down Eve later. Without backup.
Whispering a string of insults aimed towards her goddamn fool husband, she grabbed her own supplies and headed for the door. Reaching the front porch of the cabin, she halted in surprise at the array of greasy engine parts on the ground, beside the stairs.
Not too far away, Weller was crouched at the side of the dirt track that led back down to the highway, setting up an anchor point for a tripwire. He arched an eyebrow at her surprise. "What, you think I'm completely stupid?" he called across to her. "You want to waste your time before they get here getting your car to work? Be my guest. Or you could actually stand your ground for once."
"Remind me why I didn't suffocate you in your sleep?" Remi didn't wait for his response, stalking off in the opposite direction. His short, sardonic laugh infuriated her even more.
He knew nothing about her life. She'd stood her ground in dozens of conflicts over the years, with the military, with Shepherd—hell, even during her time in the orphanage she'd fought her share of battles. His painting her as someone who cut and ran at the first sign of trouble was completely unfair.
Except that he'd walked in on her trying to do that at the apartment last night. And she'd ditched him the moment she'd been able to get away when they'd been at the evidence facility.
Okay, maybe he had a point. But it didn't change the fact that she hadn't planned to run away today. Even though she'd considered it.
Damn you, Weller!
She worked quickly, setting up a perimeter about ten meters out from the cabin and connecting her series of tripwires to Kurt's. After they'd strategically placed the C4, they retreated to the single-storey cabin to assess their next steps.
"What exactly do you plan to do if I get another migraine in the middle of this?" Remi asked, yanking out a couple of AK-47s and a few boxes of ammo from under the bed.
"Cover you," Weller said simply, reaching for one of the assault rifles and checking it over.
"It's really that simple for you, isn't it?" She scowled at him to cover her inner appreciation of how comfortable he was with the weapon. Something about seeing him sitting on the bed, his hands running over the rifle…it stoked the fire within her, provoking her imagination.
"If I want my wife back, it has to be." He checked the laser sight critically, then looked over at her. "I don't like you, Remi. And I abhor what you did to me. But you have a point. There is more of Jane in you than I gave you credit for last night, and—"
The explosion shattered whatever moment of understanding they might have reached, and just like that, they snapped into working as a seamless team, the way they had last night when the fake babysitter had let in her backup. Their personal conflict set aside, they moved into fluid action, weapons at the ready as they moved to separate points of cover.
"You good? Your migraine—" Weller asked, glancing from the shadow moving past the window to her.
"Worry about yourself," she hissed back, and opened fire.