Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)
The minutes stretched out in silence, punctuated only by Jane's heart, which beat wildly, and her breathing, which gave away just how terrified she was. Despite the fact that Kurt had his arms wrapped tightly around her, and that the sound of voices had disappeared almost as quickly as they had come, and that they hadn't heard anything since then, she did not relax even a little bit.
He knew that he had to do something to calm her down, that he at least had to try. "Jane," he whispered. "Do you want to hear a story?" It may have seemed like a strange question, but he was hoping it would distract her. When she nodded slightly against him, his face still in her hair, he lifted his head just enough to turn it, resting his cheek against her hair instead.
"Okay, so I know you haven't heard this one, because I don't think I've ever told anyone… Sarah may or may not have heard about it, but I didn't tell her, so I doubt it…" he mused out loud. He couldn't see it, but Jane couldn't help but feel her breath catch in her chest for a second. Kurt Weller was going to tell her something that he'd never told anyone? She knew him well enough to know what a big deal it was for him to open up to anyone – namely because he just didn't. She already felt special just at the thought that he would even consider telling her anything so personal to him. Without her even realizing it, there was a hint of a smile on her lips.
"My favorite memory from when I was a kid was the day before my tenth birthday. It was a Saturday. Everything seemed normal enough – my dad was sleeping off whatever he'd had to drink the night before, and Sarah had made me breakfast, because she loved to cook… despite how terrible she was at it, even back then. It was horrible, of course, but she insisted that it was my day-before-my-birthday breakfast," he said with a chuckle. "She tried, at least."
Jane's mind went back to that night at Kurt's apartment, only a few days after they'd met. If she was remembering correctly, that was the first time she'd met Sarah and Sawyer. Sarah had called her Taylor, and Sawyer had asked her who she was and then, a minute later, where she had gone. And Kurt… well, he hadn't said anything specific, but she could just feel it. They'd just found out that she was Taylor – that they'd thought that she had been Taylor – and twenty-five years of hoping and wishing was staring at her in the face whenever he looked at her. He didn't realize it, but it had just been too much. After all, how could she live up to those kinds of expectations?
Flinching slightly inside, she remembered that she'd gone into panic mode and abruptly jumped up from the table, fleeing from the apartment, down the hall to the elevator. Kurt's face when he'd caught up to her there had been so worried, and just as desperate as she had felt that night. Looking back… well, it all seemed so simple now by comparison. Now knowing everything that would come next, she wished that she had let herself hang onto that simplicity for a while longer. Of course, that was easy to say now, but still…
She felt a twinge inside her at the bittersweet memory, and wondered if she would ever get that chance again. No, I can't go there, she reminded herself. Because even assuming they could get out of where they were now, alive, she'd long since stopped hoping that they could have another chance, that he would let her in the way he'd done at first, so easily. It had all become too complicated. The two of them… once upon a time she'd thought that the baggage between them made it work, but now… now it felt like no matter how much she had once wanted it to, maybe it had been just that – something she'd believed in because she'd wanted it, and nothing more. An idea that she'd clung to because it was all she had, no matter how unrealistic. Or maybe just because she hadn't know any better at the time.
Or at least, that was what she'd thought until recently. After she'd stopped seeing – er, been dumped by – Oliver, she'd realized in surprise that she didn't really miss him. Oliver, that is. She missed the companionship, the feeling of having someone, all the good feelings that she'd felt when they'd been dating, yes… But she didn't actually miss him. Which made her wonder… Was that normal?
"Poor Sarah," Jane mumbled in reply, and Kurt took that as a very good sign. She was hearing him, even if she was still completely rigid. Her breathing had slowed down just a little once again, and if it was possible, he swore she shifted closer to him. Despite the circumstances, that made him smile.
"Poor me, I had to pretend I liked it!" he insisted, his voice not going above a whisper. "So anyway, it was probably only nine o'clock in the morning when Taylor showed up… which was actually pretty late for her on the weekend. Her mom always had to be at work early, and as soon as she left, Taylor was at my door. She never did like being home alone."
He tried to keep his tone light, but it wasn't easy. Talking about Taylor wasn't something he did voluntarily. His stories of her were something that most of the time, as special as they were to him, he didn't even want to recall them himself, much less tell them to anyone else. But as sad as they made him, they also made him happy in a bittersweet way, and if there was anyone for whom he would expose the vulnerable side of himself, it was Jane.
He paused to determine the effect of his story on her so far. After all, Taylor was a sensitive subject not just for him, but also for her. Maybe not in the same way, of course, but with nearly equal intensity. When it came down to it, however, he couldn't imagine that hearing about Taylor now, in these circumstances, could make her feel worse than she already did… and when she didn't seem to flinch, he decided it was safe to go on.
"She was so lucky to have you," Jane whispered before he had a chance to continue, feeling he softness of his shirt against her cheek, hearing his heartbeat in her ear, and wishing that she could have been a better friend to him… Or a better… whatever it was that they were. He had deserved more. Someone more like Taylor, who could never have betrayed him the way she had. Even now, after things had normalized between them again, she still felt this regret, and she imagined that she probably always would.
He didn't often think of Taylor as lucky, all things considered, but he knew how Jane meant it. As messed up as his childhood had been, he felt as though for as long as he could remember, he'd always just been trying to get by. His best had never felt good enough, for anything or anyone. After all, his mom had left years before that, and whether that had had anything to do with him or not, he'd always internalized it as if it had. The idea that Taylor had been lucky to have had him was a foreign concept to him. No, if anyone had been lucky, he had been lucky to have her – a friend so devoted to him that she would have done anything for him. Somehow, he couldn't see that the same applied to him, that he would have done anything for her, as well, and that that was what Jane was talking about.
He overlooked her comment, feeling her words sting in his chest as his childhood insecurities reared themselves up again. The subject of Taylor could do that to him. As successful and relatively secure of an adult that he may be – albeit slightly tortured by his past, but who wasn't, really? – the subject of Taylor had always been able to make him feel just as small and guilty as he had after she'd first disappeared. It was impossible to think that she'd been lucky to have him. After all, he'd let the unthinkable happen to her when he was supposed to be protecting her.
"So she showed up with a huge grin on her face, peeking through my back door before just letting herself in, as usual," he continued smiling slightly at the memory of the five year old girl who had changed his life so completely. "And she begged me to come out in the back yard, to go to our hiding place in the woods. Of course, Sarah had no interest in that. She tried to get me to watch a movie with her, but she didn't have a chance. I always preferred to go outside, and so did Taylor."
He paused, seeing that day so clearly in his mind that it took his breath away. He hadn't thought about it in a very, very long time. It wasn't easy to think about these memories of her, and he didn't indulge in it very often. Besides, these days he spent most of his waking hours trying to save the world, so there was little time left for reminiscing about anything.
"She had her backpack on," he remembered aloud, "Care Bears, I think… maybe…? They're these colorful bear toys with a big white patch on their stomach, and each of them had a different picture in the middle of the white patch. They were a big deal back then. It wasn't a surprise, because she loved to wear that backpack. Anywhere she went that year, whether there was actually anything in it or not, she was had it on… So we spent the morning back in the woods, in our hiding spot in the trees. The weather was perfect, much better than usual at that time of year," he remembered. "And when I said we should head back for lunch, she just shook her head, the biggest grin on her face, and reached into her backpack. She pulled out two very much smashed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They had obviously been made by a five year old, but even so…"
His voice trailed off as he remembered the look on Taylor's face, how proud she'd been when she'd pulled out those sandwiches, handing him one and taking out one for herself. "She had juice boxes, too, and she told me that she'd been planning this birthday picnic for a long time." He paused, and wondered if maybe he shouldn't have told this story in the first place, because he was feeling a little light-headed, and he wasn't sure he could continue. Just then, she shifted against him, and he realized for the first time that she had begun to relax. Suddenly, he was grounded again. That was all the encouragement he needed.
"After we'd eaten, and I'd finally convinced her that my fingers were not sticky from the sandwiches – which was funny because that was what I usually gave her a hard time with after we ate anything remotely sticky – she took one more thing out of her backpack. It was a picture that she'd painted – it must have been at school, because the paper was heavy duty, and I'm pretty sure there wasn't any of that in her house, or my house for that matter… It was a little bit crumpled from being in her backpack, but it was…" He took a breath, remembering once again. "It was a rainbow, with two tiny little stick people underneath. I asked her who the people were, and she said, 'That's you and me, silly!'" He couldn't help but smile at the memory, even as he felt his heart constrict with pain.
"She grinned at me for a second, and then said, 'Happy birthday, Kurt. I wanted to give you your birthday present early, so I could be the first one.' She looked so proud of herself, and then she hugged me harder than I thought it was possible for a five year old to hug anyone, ever." He remembered the crushing hug that had accompanied her words, and he had the sudden sensation of falling. This was why he didn't let himself do this, didn't indulge in reliving these memories. This feeling that was like his world was crumbling around him again, after all this time. It was funny how it could do that – that even after so many years and so many repetitions, he could still feel so much like it was all falling apart.
There was a change in his breathing then. She noticed that it became faster and shallower, and she could only imagine how much that memory was hurting him. Their connection was so strong, she felt a twinge in her own chest just thinking about it, and instinctively she tightened her arms around him.
He felt himself coming back from wherever he'd temporarily gone, those few seconds when emotion had completely overtaken him, and noticed that Jane was squeezing him tightly. The twinge in his heart changed then, becoming more of a flood of emotion… Not just any emotion, either, though he wasn't quite sure how to put a name on it. It was the same one he felt whenever he thought of Jane, just far more intense.
You know what it is, the voice in his head told him. Stop denying it.
"What happened to it?" she asked, breaking into his thoughts. He'd almost forgotten that he was telling her the story, because it had successfully distracted him as well as it had her.
"I had it out on a shelf in my room for a long time," he said, sadness creeping into his voice. "Eventually, after a few years, it was just too hard to look at… so I put it away." He felt her head nod underneath his.
"But you still have it?" she asked, not quite sure why she was as interested as she was. Suddenly it just felt important to her that he still had the painting.
"Yeah," he said, remembering putting it away carefully in a box of other things that were equally special and yet heartbreaking to him.
"Good," she whispered, feeling better just knowing that nothing had happened to it, though she didn't know why.
"I'll show it to you, next time we're at my place," he promised. He felt her stiffen slightly at those last words, and he knew why. After all, they didn't know if they would get that chance – though of course, he reminded himself, they never knew for sure that they would get out of any of the tight spots that they got into, and so far, they always had. But he knew that that was what she was thinking, so he added, "We're going to get out of here, Jane. Okay?"
"You don't know that," she said in a small voice.
"I don't know how," he said, "but I know that we will." He could feel her shaking her head again, and he leaned down and kissed the top of it, in her hair. Almost immediately, he felt her relax again, though her arms pulled more tightly around him.
She surprised him then. "I have twofavorite memories," she whispered, her cheek still against his chest. "You're in both of them." It hadn't been her intention to say any of those words out loud, they had simply slipped out as quickly as they'd come into her mind.
"Oh, yeah?" he asked curiously. He hadn't expected her to reciprocate, and now he was more than a little bit curious. But he was even more surprised when she lifted her head off of him and sat back until his arms fell from around her shoulders, and he wasn't sure exactly where she was. For a second he wondered if he should be worried, until he felt her hands land tentatively on his knees, which were still in the air on either side of him.
She must be pretty distracted by whatever she's thinking about to be comfortable enough to move that far away, here of all places, he mused.
Her two favorite memories weren't something she'd been planning to share with him, and even though she knew that he couldn't see how flustered she'd just gotten, she felt the momentary need to withdraw. Considering the darkness, she didn't move far away. No, she knew that she was still sitting between his knees. Now kneeling in front of him, she realized that in those few seconds she'd already begun to miss the contact with him, more so than usual because of the darkness surrounding her. She moved one hand, and then the other, slowly through space until they each found his knees, on either side of her. Still kneeling, she slid herself a little closer to him to close the large distance that she herself had suddenly created.
He sensed her hesitation, both when her hands came to rest on his knees, and from the fact that she remained quiet. After all, he knew her pretty well.
"You don't have to tell me," he told her sincerely, which made her smile into the darkness. Once again, emotion swelled in her and suddenly she wanted to tell him… And yet even so, she couldn't bring herself to actually do it.
"But am I allowed to guess?" he asked. She swore that she could hear the grin on his face as he sat forward, covering her hands with his own where they still sat on his knees and then slowly running his hands up along her bare arms to her elbows, and then back, several times.
"Um… sure," she replied hesitantly, her smile of amusement evident even in her voice.
"Okay, then, let's see…" he said, trying to think of an appropriately curious question. "Would I remember either of these times?"
He heard her chuckle softly to herself, and then she replied, "Well, I like to think so…" It was almost as though he could hear her blushing, which was something that he'd never even known was possible.
"Hmmm… Interesting," he said, wondering if the guess that was already forming in his head was correct. Leaning further forward slowly, inch by inch, he could suddenly feel her breath just in front of him, and he knew that he was close.
"Was anyone else there?" he asked, leaning forward just a little more, what felt like painfully slowly as he listened for her breathing. He was trying to line things up just right…
"Well, there wasn't supposed to be…" Jane replied softly. Once again, he swore he could hear the expression on her face just as well as her words, and this time she seemed more amused, as if she had a guess what he was doing. "But one of the times there was… sort of."
"Interesting," Kurt said, pretending he was putting a lot of thought into what they were talking about but in reality, when she'd spoken he'd finished lining up his face in front of hers. Now he was as close as he could get to being lined up without being able to see her. At least, he thought he was. He'd soon find out how he'd done.
Leaning slowly forward once again, he got exactly the result he'd been trying for when his nose bumped gently against hers. He heard her chuckle again, sounding more relaxed this time, and she turned her head just slightly, so that her nose slid to the side of his, still touching. It was intimate and innocent all at once.
"Did you give up?" she asked quietly, their faces now almost as close together as they could get. "You stopped asking questions." She wasn't quite sure how much space was between their lips, but she knew that it wasn't very much.
"On the contrary," he said, his smile wide, "I'm pretty sure I figured it out." He didn't say anything else, simply leaned his face a fraction of an inch closer to hers, hearing her breath hitch in surprise.
His hands had slid up her arms to her shoulders as they'd been talking, and they were now at the back of her neck.
"Are you doing this just to try to distract me from thinking about where we are?" she asked suddenly. She was surprised when he stopped moving immediately, and somehow she knew that he'd stopped smiling.
"I would never do this just to distract you," he told her sincerely, and she knew without a doubt that he meant it. Once again, her chest ached a little bit at the genuine tone of his voice.
"Do what, exactly?" she whispered, smiling even as the ache in her chest faded only slowly.
"This," he said simply, leaning forward again. A second later he'd closed the distance between them, his lips finding hers with perfect accuracy, even in the dark. It was, perhaps, a slightly gentler kiss than the previous two, one that started a little slower, as if to make up for the lack of information available from their eyes beforehand. She would almost have described it as tentative at first, as if he wasn't sure how she would react… which seemed rather incomprehensible to her. She had been sure that she had lost the chance for this ever happening again, and suddenly her heart was bursting with happiness.
Considering that she'd been close to breathless with panic since she'd woken up in this tiny cell, or closet, or whatever it was, and that her breathing had only really settled down in the last few minutes, it didn't take long before Jane needed air again. Leaning back reluctantly, breathing much faster than she had been a minute before, she immediately missed the contact with him and wished that she could see his face just then. Not sure where exactly she would end up, she tilted her forehead forward, a second later bumping gently against his forehead, exactly as she'd hoped. She felt the pressure of him leaning his forehead back against hers as well.
"It's okay if this one isn't one of your favorite memories," he told her softly. "There's extenuating circumstances."
He heard her breathe out softly, almost like a chuckle, then she whispered back, "Assuming we make it out of here alive, it's definitely on the list." She heard him exhale quickly, as if her comment had made him smile unexpectedly. It was almost as though suddenly her mind snapped back to reality then, as her own words worked deeper into her brain. Assuming we make it out of here alive…
You got out of the black site, without any help, the voice in her head reminded her. You can do this. She took another deep breath and willed herself to focus on the positive, and not to make herself numb. Yes, she was still in pain from her injuries, but sitting here with Kurt, she didn't want to be numb.
Despite the lighter tone to her words, he heard her breathing accelerate then, and she leaned her body – not just her face – closer to him. Since he was no longer sitting back against the wall, she didn't have to lean far before she was pressed close to him. His hands, which had been moving back and forth on the skin on the back of her neck, now withdrew from their position and instead, his arms wrapped around her lower back only seconds later, pulling her closer.
"When we get out of here alive, we can make that list of favorite memories a lot longer," he whispered, his face only inches from hers. "Okay?" Even as she was now once again attempting to breathe normally, a small chuckle escaped her and she nodded against his forehead. Leaning his forehead back from hers just a little, he leaned down to kiss her again, this time lightly, knowing that she was already short of breath.
"Okay," she replied when he leaned back again a few seconds later. Focusing on breathing in and out, feeling his arms draped around her waist securely, she felt herself begin to stabilize again. She wasn't so much numbing herself to the feelings that this place made her feel, as she had had to do in the black site, as she was consciously deciding that she would not be defeated. Granted, they still didn't really know what they were up against, or if their captors would behave the way Keaton had, but until she knew more, it didn't make sense to make assumptions. She'd gotten herself out of lots of tight situations, and this one would be no different. Determination suddenly flooded through her. After all, she had escaped from a black site. This place would far easier to get out of, especially with Kurt there with her… at least, she had to believe that.
He could feel the difference in her even as they sat quietly there facing each other, having no communication between them beyond what they could feel from holding onto the other. Even so, he could sense it, and he couldn't help but smile slightly. It felt so strange, as it had this whole time, to be staring directly at her and yet not be able to see her. It was unsettling, and yet, at the same time it had somehow made him far more comfortable reaching for her. While touch had always been comforting between them, there had certainly never been this much of it.
A silver living, maybe? the voice in his head teased, and he almost felt guilty for smiling at the thought.
A few more quiet seconds elapsed, and then suddenly they heard the sound of a slamming door and once again, loud voices just outside. This time, they could hear them more clearly than the previous time. Instinctively, they turned to face the door, the direction from which the voices came. Without thinking about it, Kurt shifted, sitting up rigidly and pulling himself onto his knees, pressed close into her side, his hand finding hers in the darkness and squeezing tightly.
"I'm so sick of this," one of them was roaring nearby. "Can't we just kill them?"
"No," the other one said emphatically. "You heard the boss. If you do that again, he'll consider it an act of direct disobedience, and you don't want to see what will happen to you." This was good news as far as Jane and Kurt were concerned, although it still didn't clear up exactly what these people wanted to keep them here for…
"Alright, alright, fine," the other man yelled. "I get it! I'm not stupid. I don't want to get on his bad side."
"Well I'm glad to know you've finally learned your lesson," said his friend sarcastically. Then, apparently to others in the room with them, the same man called, "You guys ready?" There were several affirmative sounding grunts, and then, chillingly, the sound of a key in the lock on the door in front of them.
Jane and Kurt had frozen in place, listening to the exchange, and now they steeled themselves for whatever was going to come, their eyes straining in the darkness which they had a feeling was about to be illuminated.
After who knew how long without a single beam of light for their eyes to adjust to, the brightness that flooded the room at the second the door swung open was blinding. It was almost as though someone had pointed spotlights directly into their eyes – that was how it felt to Jane and Kurt. They heard chuckles and several mumbled comments about their appearance, and then a loud voice from somewhere in front of them boomed, "So, who wants to go first?"
Both of them sucked in their breath, and Kurt felt Jane's hand clamp around his, as if she knew exactly what he was about to do and was warning him accordingly. Don't, the gesture said.
Of course, that didn't deter him. Whatever they were going to do to them, he doubted very much that it was anything positive, and he'd be damned if he was going to let anything happen to Jane that he could prevent… especially because he knew that if he didn't speak up fast, she probably would. That was just how she was. He may have been a control freak, but she was equally as stubborn as he was about putting others' well-being first.
"First for what?" Kurt asked, trying to make his voice just as big as the man who'd just spoken to them.
"Don't you worry about that, smart ass," the man told him.
"Alright, fine. I'm first," Kurt replied without a hint of concern. He somehow managed to disengage his hand from Jane's, but only after giving it a tight squeeze. It's going to be fine, the squeeze said, even though neither of them knew that for sure.
"Okay, then, stand up and walk forward," he was ordered. Kurt did just that without a second thought. His only regret was that he knew how scared Jane was going to be there, alone, but he couldn't let himself think about that right now. This was more important. This was the only thing he could do to protect her, even though there was no guarantee that it would work, or for how long.
Things were beginning to come into focus around him as his eyes adjusted to the light. There were at least six large men standing just outside the door, in addition to the two just inside the doorway. Every one of them were very well armed. Escaping was definitely not going to be easy. Hands grabbed him roughly from the sides, by the arms, and now he could see the man who had spoken to them, standing just outside the door.
He looked at Kurt with a menacing grin. "You try anything, she dies," he promised smugly. "Got it?"
"Yes," he said simply. He had no intention of doing anything that would put Jane in danger. He would get as much information as he could and then… well, he would figure something out. He always did.
"Same goes for you, princess," the man called over Kurt's shoulder to Jane. "You try anything, he dies. Understood?"
"Yes," came Jane's reply from behind him. He knew that tone in her voice, the no-nonsense one that was probably what talking to Remi had once been like, if he had to guess.
"Good," said the man, chillingly cheerfully. "Now, since we're all on the same page, let's go." Kurt was now outside the room, being led down a hallway. His eyes had adjusted enough to the light to be able to see around him, but it still seemed impossibly bright and he had no idea where he was being taken. So far, it was just a narrow hallway with bright white walls and every ten feet or so, a door on each side.
The heavy door was slammed shut behind the men as they exited, and Jane was left in darkness again, this time alone. Standing up shakily, she pushed herself back against the wall. Having forgotten about how much her ankle hurt, she was almost surprised when she nearly fell over, unable to stand steadily on her own just then, even with the wall's help. Quickly letting herself slide back down the wall, she located her other boot, the one that Kurt had removed, along the wall to the left of her, and began the task of slowly and carefully putting it back on. She now felt the throbbing of her ankle once again, along with the pain in many other parts of her body, all of which seemed to have intensified. She had stopped noticing them for a while, with so many other things going on. It surprised her just how much she had to loosen her boot in order to get it on, telling her that her ankle had swelled more than she had realized. But of course, that was a problem for later.
Standing up carefully once again, not wanting to be in a position that appeared so much weaker when they came back. She reasoned that they would come back and take her wherever they'd just taken Kurt, especially since they'd asked, 'who wants to go first?' Her breath was now coming faster once again, as she thought about what in the world they might be doing, where they were taking him… That thought chilled her even more than the thought of them coming back for her. After all, she'd been through it all before, and she knew just how horrible things could get. The thought of them doing even one of those things to Kurt... He was fearless and strong and he could withstand far more than the average person, she knew, but because she cared so deeply for him, the thought of them torturing him, no matter how little, bothered her far more than the idea of having the exact same thing done to her.
This is all because of me, she thought, a wave of guilt threatening to knock her over. That was when she felt it, the familiar numbness slipping back over her like a blanket. She hated the thought of slipping back to that place, where she practically disengaged from her body, but she'd already proven that if she had to, she could.
There's always a way out.
Roman's words echoed in her head from long ago. She'd escaped from Hell itself once, and other, lesser situations many other times. This time would be no different. All of her senses remained on high alert, the physical pain from the different regions of her body first intensifying, and then fading as she focused on tuning it out.
Pain is a dream, she reminded herself. A bad dream. She would focus on her well-being, on her health, later. Right now, she needed to focus on staying alive. To do that, she had to remain alert. Nothing else mattered. She would figure out how to save them both.
All of the noise had retreated from outside the door. The complete silence was almost worse, and her ears strained to hear something… anything. The minutes stretched on and one, but still, Jane did not relax. For what felt like an endless stretch of time, she did the only thing she could do… she waited.