Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)
For a few minutes, the path was wide enough for them to walk side by side, hand in hand. They'd enjoyed those minutes even more because they'd known that it wouldn't last. After all, both of them had walked up this way, so they knew that the path would narrow quickly. When it did, they slowed to a stop just for a minute, turning to each other without a word and leaning their faces together for a short but sweet kiss. Pulling back, they smiled shyly at each other, and at the fact that they hadn't needed to put into words that that was what they both needed just them. They'd been married less than a year, and hadn't seen each other in almost six months, and yet… they still seemed to be in perfect sync. It wasn't surprising, really, since they'd understood each other that way almost since the first day they'd met.
"You go first," he told her, holding his arm out. She frowned and bit her lip, clearly not liking the idea. "You wouldn't see me over my giant backpack anyway," he added. Besides, I need to be able to see you, to know that you're there and safe and that you didn't vanish into thin air, he added in his head.
Jane knew that there was more to his insistence that she go first than just his extra-large back pack. Indeed, even after all this time, she swore she could read his thoughts just then. Not that it was especially hard to figure out that he wanted to keep his eyes on her. Of course, she didn't want to look away from him either, if she couldn't have contact with him, so she knew the feeling… But she couldn't help but feel like he had more of a right to that feeling than she did. After all, she was the one who'd disappeared into thin air. Run away. If anyone had the right to be paranoid, it was him.
It's not about having a right to certain feelings, the voice in her head whispered. You feel how you feel. There are no rights… or wrongs.
Wondering if he noticed the sharp intake of breath she felt herself take as she looked into the distance for a second while she got momentarily lost in her thoughts, she looked up at him slowly. As happy as she was that he was here, that they were going home together, it was going to take a while for either of them to be okay. In some ways it made her think of the beginning, when she'd first come out of the bag.
You got through that, and you'll get through this, the voice in her head told her. Just focus on him.
The expression in his eyes was much like the one that had been there when he'd first arrived in her tent, when they'd stood back to look at each other. There was so much love there, even more now than before, but there was also hurt. She took slow, deliberate breaths. Yes, you hurt him, she reminded herself. It doesn't make you a bad person. It makes you human. He's not angry about it, but it won't heal right away. And that's okay. Just do your best.
Smiling sadly at him, she nodded and looked down as she slowly stepped onto the path in front of him. As she did, she felt his hand gently brush against her waist, falling again as she reached the center of the path. They couldn't walk close enough together for that contact to be sustained, as much as she wished for it.
Patience, she told herself. He is your future once again, not just your past. That thought almost felt too decadent to be true after she'd spent the past many months trying to desensitize herself to the idea that she wouldn't ever see him again. It had hurt like nothing the CIA could ever have done to her.
The terrain was rocky here, and it required them to pay close attention to the ground beneath their feet so that they didn't trip. Jane was glad for this distraction from her thoughts, especially since she had to walk in front of Kurt. Otherwise she might have been tempted to look back at him enough that it would have slowed their progress. She just reminded herself that this narrow part of the path wouldn't last forever, it was just something they needed to get past. It seemed like an appropriate metaphor, given their circumstances.
Meanwhile, Kurt walked behind her, staring at the back of her head as his thoughts raced on and on. His emotions were a tangled mess, after the last six months of fear, desperation, hurt, loneliness, frustration, determination, even anger… and through all of them, a love so intense that nothing could wipe it away. All of these emotions were still present in his mind, and in addition there was now relief, understanding and sympathy in the mix, as well. His mind and his heart were overloaded, and it was hard to know how to feel or what to think.
Of course, these feelings didn't wait patiently in line to appear one at a time. On the contrary, they surged through him in twos, threes or more, sometimes all of them at once, catching him off guard. He had to consciously stop his mind from racing, forcing himself to stop and focus on the fact that she was there, and she was real, not some figment of his imagination or a dream that he was having. He'd dreamed about their reunion so many times, but this reality was so much sweeter because it was real.
It's going to be okay now, he reminded himself as he watched the back of her head in front of him. Just then, she turned to glance quickly over her shoulder at him, and her smile was dazzling. He hated that he had to walk along behind her, that he couldn't simply sit and stare at her. In a few seconds, she had turned back around, but the feeling of giddiness that had washed over him when she'd smiled at him continued to make him smile long after she was facing forwards again. More than anything just then, he wanted to hold onto her.
There will be time for that, he reminded himself. In order to get home, you have to first get off this mountain. In order to do that, you need to walk behind her.
They'd been walking for about an hour when she noticed the darkening clouds rolling in. What had been a mostly sunny day was suddenly overcast, with ominously colored clouds moving in their direction. She had only seen a few really bad storms since she'd been there, and she hoped that she wasn't about to see another one. They didn't exactly have anywhere to go, and there was nowhere nearby to take shelter. Looking around at the rocky terrain, there didn't appear to be any options, only the occasional large rocks and a few boulders.
He saw her glance at the sky, and then at their surroundings, and he knew that they were having the same thoughts. The darkening sky was something he had been watching for the last few minutes as well. "Looks like we may be about to get wet," he told her. Jane glanced over her shoulder at him and grimaced, nodding.
"Yeah," she agreed. "Better now than at night, I guess."
This was a good point, of course. It was significantly warmer here during the day than it would be when the sun went down, even though the rain would cool things off now as well. Also, since they had no shelter at the moment, trying to sleep in the rain would be far less pleasant.
"True," he agreed. "But still not ideal. Especially if it's anything like the last rain storm I walked through to get up the mountain."
Jane was pretty sure she knew which storm he was referring to, because there had been one not too long ago that had dropped a lot of water on the monks' settlement as well. It definitely wouldn't have been fun to have been out in it.
As if on cue, small droplets began to fall on them, lightly at first but quickly increasing in speed and size. At first they kept walking, but within a few minutes Kurt had reached out and put his hand on Jane's shoulder, tugging her to a stop. He set down his backpack and opened it, pulling out a compact umbrella, quickly closing his backpack again and hoisting it back onto his back, then climbing onto a large rock nearby that came up to about their waist height. He settled himself quickly and beckoned her towards him.
"Come on," he said, reaching out his hand to her to help her up. Once she was seated beside him, he put up the umbrella. They knew that they were still going to get wet, but since there was no other shelter nearby, this seemed like a "better than nothing" solution, and certainly preferable to getting completely drenched. Still, even sitting close beside each other, they didn't fit well under the small umbrella.
"We can do better than this," he told her. The rain was falling harder now, collecting in what looked like a small river along the path they'd been walking on a minute before. "Hold this." She took the handle of the umbrella from him, holding it above them, curious about what he was referring to when he said "We can do better than this." The next second, he'd scooped her up and sat her across his lap, where she folded her legs in to try to keep them under the umbrella. She was surprised but not unhappy to end up here, suddenly so close to him after the hour or so walking and feeling so far away from him. "That's better," he pronounced.
Looking up at him, she continued to hold the umbrella above them as his arms wrapped around her. She didn't mind at all being the one to hold the umbrella… not if it meant she got to sit here like this, with him holding onto her. No, she just might die of happiness, of relief, right here. Exhaling slowly, she leaned against him, her head fitting into the crook of his neck, feeling his head lean down on top of hers and his arms pull more tightly around her. They looked down at the water flowing between the rocks now, where they'd been walking, which looked as though it had always been a river.
"I guess it's better than we didn't try to keep walking through that… even though we don't really have time to spare," she said loudly, trying to be heard over the sound of the rain.
"Yeah," he agreed. "I guess Mother Nature knew that we needed a break."
"Did we? Already?" she asked.
"Maybe not because we're tired yet," he replied, "But I think we still needed a break… needed this."As if to demonstrate what he meant, he squeezed his arms tighter still around her. Smiling and leaning harder against him, she breathed in slowly, trying to inhale the moment, the feeling, as well as simply the scent of him. It was as though every second now was a gift that she had never expected to be given, that she didn't feel like she deserved – though she knew that he would argue that she did.
"Kurt, I—" she started, leaning her head up to try to speak closer to her ear so that he could hear her better over the rain.
"Don't say you're sorry," he told her sternly. When she stopped talking then, he knew that he'd anticipated her words correctly. He kissed her forehead, and his voice softened as he continued. "I know you are, sweetheart. And I'm sorry that you have to remember the terrible things that Remi did."
"That's not the same," she tried to protest.
Shaking his head, he replied calmly, "No, it's not. But it's not about being even. There's nothing that says that anything has to be the same. You're here, and I'm here, and it's going to be okay. We've been through worse, haven't we?" As if to emphasize his words, he kissed her forehead again, then turned his head so that he cheek rested there against her skin.
She thought back to everything that had already happened to them in the past few years. Sandstorm and everything that had come with it. "Yeah," she conceded. "But it's my fault that we're here."
"You know, I'd never been to Tibet," he told her, as if it were merely an interesting fact. "It's really beautiful here. I have to say, I love my job, but there's really not a lot of international travel involved in FBI jobs… And who knows how long it's been since I had a real vacation…"
"You're telling me that sitting here on a boulder, on a mountain, with no shelter in our future for days, in the pouring rain, is what you're going to call a vacation?" she asked incredulously.
"It's really hard to get you alone for very long," he told her, as if he'd planned this trip for that very reason. "There always seems to be someone interrupting us. Now that I think about it, we may have gotten together long before we actually did if people would've just not interrupted us all the time. Seriously, just think about it…" He leaned back just enough to grin at her in amusement, his eyes sparkling as the rain continued to fall fast and furious around them. They were definitely still getting wet, but not as wet as they would have without that small umbrella. And because of their closeness, they weren't noticing at all.
Looking back at him in amazement, she just shook her head. Here they were, on a mountain half a world away from civilization, for which she was completely her fault… and yet he was pretending that he'd planned this trip on purpose.
"Don't say it," he told her seriously, looking directly into her eyes as he leaned his face closer to hers. I know what you're thinking, his eyes told her loud and clear.
"Don't say what?" she asked, as if challenging him to know what she was thinking. Then again, it really shouldn't surprise her if he did. He had always seemed to know.
"Don't say you don't deserve this," he whispered just loudly enough to be heard over the rain, looking into her eyes confidently. He registered the look of surprise as she realized that he really had known what she'd wanted to say.
"I wasn't going to say that," she told him.
"But you were thinking it," he pronounced confidently.
Smiling shyly, she glanced down, and then back up at him. "Maybe," she allowed. "But all things considered, it's a lot easier to believe that what I deserve is the bad things that have happened."
Shaking his head, his expression clouded over. "Not for a second," he told her, and she could hear anguish in his voice. "You never deserved any of that." He kissed the bridge of her nose, and then leaned his forehead against hers, closing his eyes and inhaling slowly before lifting his head and looking back down at her, his smile returning.
"One of these days you'll start believing me when I tell you that you deserve only the good parts, and even more of them," he told her, determination written all over his face.
"Oh yeah?" she asked. "You think so? That I'll believe it?"
"Oh, I know so," he replied. "Because I'm not going to stop saying it until you do. You'll give in out of sheer annoyance so that I'll stop."
Raising her eyebrows at him, she couldn't help but smile. "Oh, really?" she asked. "Are you sure? I'm pretty stubborn."
"And I love that about you," he told her with a wink. "But so am I."
"You love that I'm stubborn?" she repeated questioningly. "I thought that made me a pain in the ass."
Failing to suppress a grin, he nodded slowly. "Oh, it does," he assured her as seriously as he could. "But I love that about you, too." When she looked at him as though he was crazy, he chuckled. Now it was his turn to shake his head at her. "Don't you get it, Jane? I love everything about you."
Suddenly she got goosebumps all over, all at once, and she felt her whole body tingling slightly. She simply didn't know what to say, so she just stared up at him, in awe.
"Jane Doe is speechless?" he asked after watching her for a few seconds, grinning. Shaking her head because she couldn't think of a response, instead she leaned forward to kiss him. She was so distracted, all of a sudden, that she almost dropped the umbrella that she was still holding over them. As soon as she felt the first drops of the heavy rain pelting them, however, she snapped it back up in place. As she did, one of his hands reached for it as well, covering hers around the thin handle. They both laughed, all the while never letting their mouths lose contact with each other as they simply continued kissing.
"I'm not speechless," she told him a minute later, as she leaned back just far enough to catch her breath. "I do have something to say." They were still less than an inch apart, close enough for him to bump the tip of his nose against hers, then to run it down the side of her nose and over her right cheekbone. For a second, she closed her eyes at the sensation. It was all she could do to concentrate on how it felt, and visual stimuli was simply too much to process simultaneously.
"Oh yeah?" he asked as he watched her, continuing to move the tip of his nose softly back and forth across her cheek, amused by her reaction, "What's that?"
Her stomach was flip flopping like crazy, and as much as she wanted to both open her eyes and look at his as well as go right back to kissing him, she found that she couldn't do either just then. She couldn't move at all, in fact. When he finally paused, appearing to understand that she couldn't respond unless he stopped what he was doing, he kissed the spot on her cheek where his nose had stopped and then leaned back just far enough to break contact. Her eyes slowly opened, and they were filled with more than a little awe.
"What I wanted to tell you," she began slowly, her smile growing with each word, "was that I just discovered that I like kissing you in the rain. Not that it's a surprise, of course…" Now she was grinning at him, biting her bottom lip as she waited for his reaction.
"Well, as long as we're stuck here waiting for the rain to stop…" he grinned back at her, letting the tip of his nose touch hers once more and then leaning in to kiss her again.
"I like the way you think," she whispered, already kissing him as she spoke, her smile feeling like it was going to crack her face wide open. She didn't know how it was possible, but she swore than his lips felt softer every time he kissed her. For a second she considered giving up on the umbrella. Did it really matter if they got soaked? Wouldn't it be worth it?
It will matter if you end up freezing with no way to get warm, the voice in her head reminded her. Be smart. He's not going anywhere without you. There's plenty of time for that. And so she convinced herself to be content with kissing him under the umbrella and not attempting to go any further.
Kurt's emotions were in overload. The hurt that he'd carried with him for the past six months wasn't gone, but the sting of the open emotional wound was already beginning to heal. He had known all along that she must have had a good reason to leave, and he now knew that she had. As much as that didn't just make the pain that he'd felt disappear, knowing the truth about Jane's actions helped transform his personal heartache into an ache that he felt not only on his own behalf, but on hers as well – after all, he wasn't the only one who'd been hurting. She had thought that she was making the sacrifice that she had to in order to save his life, as misguided as it had been. He wished that she had talked to him instead, but he couldn't be angry with her… not when all she'd wanted to do was to protect him. It was all very complicated.
Yes, the fear that he would look away for a second and then look back to find her gone was fading, albeit slowly. It would probably remain at the back of his mind, despite what logic told him to believe, for a long time. When he felt it tugging at him, however, all he had to do was to look into her eyes to calm himself down again. It would be okay. As many times as he'd told her that over the years that he'd known her, he'd needed to hear it just as much, he realized now. He'd been more accustomed to his own baggage, having lived with it so much longer, but in a way, they had more in common than he'd let himself realize. Both of them had a gaping hole in their life than only the other person could fill. This fact had come as a very slow realization, but once he saw it, he couldn't understand how he'd missed it for so long.
When they eventually stopped kissing and leaned back, both of them with one hand still around the handle of the umbrella, he released his free hand from around her to bring it to her cheek, moving his thumb back and forth slowly. Looking deep into her eyes, he saw an expression that matched the way he felt just then. Uncertainly. Love. Fear. Joy. Pain. Hope. Relief. All of these, and more.
For a few seconds, he forgot about everything happening around them. He didn't hear the rain, didn't feel the sensation of the water running off the boulder around them or the unevenness of the hard surface on which they were sitting. For a second, there was only the two of them. It wasn't the first such moment he'd had since he'd found her, and he knew it wouldn't be the last. He liked this sensation… that the rest of the world just melted away and left only the two of them.
He was staring at her so intently, as if he was trying to look all the way into her soul, to find answers to questions he didn't even know he had, and she couldn't look away. On the contrary, she didn't want to look away. There was a feeling of warmth that spread through her when he held her attention this way that was unlike anything else she could remember. What was that silly expression she'd heard somewhere? When it's right, you just know? Of course, she'd known for a very long time that with Kurt, it was just right, but after everything, it was a relief to feel it again, and to know that he was feeling it, too. Because that much was clear just from looking at him.
As much as she didn't want to look away, when she suddenly noticed that she no longer heard the rain beating down on them, she couldn't help but glance slightly to the side of him, over his shoulder, to see that indeed, the rain had stopped. Looking down at the rocky ground, she saw that the torrent of water that had flowed down the path the last time she had looked was now a trickle. It was almost time to start moving again.
"We should get going," she heard him say, just as she was thinking it. Looking up, she saw him looking down at the path as well, and at the same time, they lowered the umbrella. His hand was on the outside of hers, and he released it reluctantly so that she could pull the umbrella back down, since it was no longer necessary.
"Yeah," she agreed, pulling the strap around the umbrella and securing the Velcro, then handing it back to him to store. He ran a clip on the far side of his backpack through the loop that hung off the handle of the umbrella, allowing it to hang on the outside to dry for the time being, and then looked back at her with a smile.
"We should be almost to the part where the path widens out again," he told her, and she nodded in agreement. Taking her hand, he squeezed it gently, then lifted it to his lips to kiss the back of it. As he did, she felt electricity radiate out from that spot on her hand, spreading through her veins quickly. "Alright, Mrs. Weller?"
She looked down at her ring for a second, gleaming despite the lack of direct sunlight, still held securely in her husband's hand.
Her husband.
Taking a few slow breaths and trying to remind herself that yes, this was real, she looked back up at him. "Ready," she replied. Suddenly, one of his arms wrapped securely around her waist and she felt them jumping off of the boulder on which they sat, with Kurt holding onto her tightly. She had put her arms around him as well in response, feeling as though she was falling, but they landed without incident. The drop had been very short, and his arm slowly loosened around her as hers reluctantly did the same. They couldn't walk that way, after all, as much as they wanted to.
Not much farther, she told herself. The journey, of course, was still very long, but it wouldn't matter quite as much when she didn't have to walk along in front of him, where she couldn't either look at or maintain contact with him. That was the thing that was killing her about the journey so far. She wanted nothing more than to be able to see him, and to touch him. To convince herself that he was real. That all of this was real.
Reluctantly, they let go of each other's hands and Jane stepped out in front, glancing back at him over her shoulder with a smile. He wanted to kiss her again just then, but he settled for smiling back at her, feeling as though the sun itself was smiling at him. "Let's go," he coaxed her. "The sooner we leave, the sooner we get there." There could have been anywhere, at that point. They had quite a few milestones to reach on their way home. The village at the bottom of the mountain was only the first big one.
They started walking once again, carefully making their way down the rocky path in single file. As she had before, every now and then Jane looked back over her shoulder at him, reassuring herself that he was there. Every time she did, she found him watching her intently, smiling at her with just a hint of a question. Everything okay? his eyes asked her. The smile she gave him in reply answered just as wordlessly. Everything's okay, her eyes told him.
Another hour and a half or so later, they came to the place where the path widened, the rocks become smaller and easier to walk on, with less chance of tripping. Here, the ground could be more aptly described as gravel than rock.
Without a word, Kurt stepped out from behind Jane at the first chance he got, grabbing her hand as he now walked beside her. "That's better," he said in a low voice, and she couldn't help but smile as she looked at their hands, now joined once again. Nodding, she felt momentarily overwhelmed with happiness just from such an innocent gesture. It was hard to believe that something so simple could make her so happy. Even as she worried about the fate of their friends, who had apparently been kidnapped somehow because of her, she felt the burden of it all lessen slightly just from having him there, tangibly beside her. They would figure it out, and they would save the others. Together. The two of them had always been an unstoppable team.
Now that she could look at him more easily, she did it frequently. Though the ground was easier to navigate here, it was still not flat, and on one of the times that she glanced up at him, her left foot happened to come in contact with a small rock at just the wrong angle. She felt herself losing her balance, tripping not very gracefully as she suddenly saw the ground getting much closer. Then, just as quickly, she felt him swing around in front of her, the hand that he was holding tightening as he caught her around the waist with his other hand. Suddenly, he was standing in front of her, holding her up, and she was no longer falling.
"You okay?" he asked, his arms still around her as he looked down into her face. Her fall had caught both of them by surprise, but he was glad that his reflexes had been quick enough to catch her.
"Yeah, thanks," she smiled, slightly embarrassed.
"You need to keep your eyes on the road," he admonished her with a grin, as if she'd been driving.
"Sorry, I can't help it," she replied with a shrug, grinning back. Then, blushing slightly, she added, "I just need to keep looking… to make sure you're still real."
He pulled her in for a tight but quick hug. "This is all real," he promised her. He remembered her telling him when they'd first gotten together about the dreams that she used to have, back when things had been so rocky between them, after the CIA. About how they were so breathtakingly real that waking up from them had been agonizing every time. "I promise."
Not that he couldn't have told her that same thing in a dream, but she chose to believe that what her mind was telling her was the truth. That it was real. She felt him slowly release her, and she reluctantly did the same. Their joined hands remained joined, however, and he squeezed hers gently.
"Are you hungry?" he asked her. They'd grabbed a bit of something that had counted as breakfast at some point early that morning just before they'd left, but the day was wearing on.
"No, not right now," she told him. She didn't want to mention that she hadn't been eating a lot lately, reverting back to old bad habits since she'd left. After all, she hadn't been especially worried about her wellbeing. It was hard to be, when she was denying herself the one thing – the one person that she wanted, and doing so permanently… Her health hadn't really been a primary concern, but she didn't dare tell him that.
"Okay, but we're not waiting too much longer before we have something," he told her sternly. "In the meantime, here." He handed her a water bottle he'd taken out of the side pocket of his larger backpack. "Have some." She nodded, taking the water bottle, and reluctantly released his hand so that she could open it and take a drink. Not a long drink, since their supplies were supposed to last them the three days that it should take them to get down the mountain, but more than a sip, at which she knew that he would protest that she needed to drink more. Handing the bottle back to him, she watched him take a drink as well, replacing the bottle in the side pocket of his backpack.
Then, as if they had planned it, their hands reached for each other again at the same instant, and they turned to start walking, both smiling at the ease with which they'd just reconnected. Things between them might not be simple, but there was no denying that it felt right.
How did I ever voluntarily give this up? she wondered.
Because you thought that you had no choice, the voice in her head replied, even though the thought had been mostly rhetorical.
Well, remind me to never even consider doing that again, no matter what, she told the voice.
Will do, it replied, and she had to grin at herself. There was no denying that this was a strange conversation.
Meanwhile, Kurt was lost in his own thoughts as well, though they were less specific. Really, if he had his way, he would simply never let go of her, which was pretty much what he was thinking.
When he glanced at her, she was smiling, and really he didn't need much more than that. In the next moment when she looked up and caught him looking at her, however, there was something in her eyes besides happiness. If he was not mistaken, there was regret as well. He knew that he'd already told her multiple times not to be sorry, that he understood, but he also knew that just as he still felt the sting of her leaving, even though he wasn't angry, she would still feel guilty. It would take time for the leftover feelings to abate, no matter that things had turned out okay. It was perfectly normal, he told himself, and yet… he wished he could do something to change it. He hated to see her making herself unhappy.
What he could do was squeeze her hand, brighten his smile at her and hope that his eyes were imparting his message, as they so often did. After all, the two of them had proven to be rather good at communicating without saying a word.
Looking back at him, she smiled. There was no mistaking that he had read her thoughts in her eyes, nor was there any doubt what he was trying to say. She didn't know how they could talk to each other that way, only that they did it often.
I'm trying, her eyes replied, which was the honest truth.
No, getting themselves to civilization, back home, was only going to be a part of the way back for them. The rest was going to take longer, but it would be worth it. Once again, she allowed herself to bask in the feeling of her gratitude that things had turned out the way they had. Deserved or not, she was luckier than she'd ever thought possible. The lessons along the way had been painful, but she liked to think that she had finally internalized them. The biggest one had perhaps been the simplest – that Kurt was simply not going to allow her to give up, not on herself and not on them – not for any reason, even one that she had found completely valid.
A shadow passed overhead and Jane was distracted enough from looking at Kurt to look up for its source. Clouds almost the color of charcoal were quickly rolling in overhead, pushing aside the puffy white ones that had dotted the sky and giving everything an ominous look to it once again. She was tempted to wonder how she hadn't noticed the clouds sooner, but she knew the answer – she'd just been distracted by looking at Kurt.
"Wow," she declared simply, making Kurt look up as well. He was just as surprised as she was to see the newest round of dark clouds.
"Looks like we're going to get rain again," he said, looking around quickly. This time, there wasn't anything for them to climb onto to escape the water. There was, however, a rocky ledge that they'd been walking beside for a while. It rose up beside them, and would give them protection on one side, at least. It was better than nothing.
"When the rain starts, we can lean up against the rocks with the umbrella," he suggested. "It's not much, but it's something…"
"It could be worse," she replied with a smile. "We could be in an open field. Or…" she glanced away for a second, then back into his eyes. "…Not here at all." Indeed, if he hadn't found her, they could be somewhere safe from the storm, or nowhere near the storm to start with… but not together. The thought made her shiver.
He held her gaze for several seconds, trying to let her know that he had gotten her meaning. "I'd rather be here," he said finally, seriously. "No matter how much it rains."
"Me, too," she smiled back at him, then added, "So let's keep walking until we don't have a choice." He nodded in agreement.
They picked up their pace slightly, knowing that they were about to once again lose time on their journey due to a rain delay, and wanting to at least get as far as they could before that happened. Reaching the bottom of the mountain in the allotted three days was already looking a little iffy with two storms in the first day, but it was smarter to stop and wait for the weather to clear than to try and walk through it.
It was only a few minutes before they felt rain begin to fall on them, and within seconds it was coming down hard and fast. They came to a stop, and Jane unclipped the umbrella from the back of Kurt's large backpack, putting it up over their heads and moving toward the rocky wall. She quickly found that his intention was for her to lean her back against the wall, and for him to press himself against her so that they were as close together as possible. His head was leaned down towards hers so that the angle of the umbrella could be somewhat even, and she tilted her face up towards his automatically, looking into his eyes.
"I'm beginning to like rainstorms," she told him, watching a grin spread across his face.
"Me, too," he replied mischievously. "It's like the weather I didn't even know I wanted."
Her smile widened, too, then, as he ever so slowly leaned his face further down towards hers. "Oh, yeah?" she asked, "Why is that?"
"Well," he said thoughtfully, pretending to give it careful consideration, "Mostly because it gives me an excuse to do this." Once again, Jane held the umbrella over the two of them, this time from behind him since her arms were around his sides, and Kurt leaned down to kiss her. His forearms were pressed carefully against the rocks behind her on either side of her shoulders, creating a little space that made her feel almost like, between that and the umbrella above them, they had their own cocoon to separate them from the outside world. In this cocoon, there was only the two of them.
"Is your back getting wet?" he asked, assuming so since the umbrella was slanted down slightly in her direction, and the water had nowhere else to go but down the face of the rock behind her.
"Yeah, but it's alright," she assured him. "I'm in better shape than I would be without an umbrella… or without you. I can handle a little water."
He nodded, kissing the tip of her nose simply because their faces were so close together. "Yeah, my legs are pretty wet, too, from the rain blowing against them," he agreed. "But like you said, it could certainly be a lot worse."
"A lot worse," she echoed, pulling herself up straighter to attempt to kiss him again, but falling just short of his face.
Looking down at her in amusement, he held still for a few seconds. "May I help you?" he asked, pretending that he didn't know what she was trying to do.
"Very funny," she replied with a growl. "You know the answer to that."
"Do I?" he asked, feigning innocence, his eyes growing wide in mock surprise.
"Dammit, Weller," she growled impatiently, knowing exactly how much he was enjoying her reaction. She didn't even need to see the grin that had taken over his entire face, although she could.
Chuckling, he couldn't help but move only the smallest bit closer, still just out of her reach, just to tease her. When her eyes narrowed at him, he laughed softly. "I love you," he told her, before finally lowering his head far enough that their lips met.
"No talking," she told him without moving away, which only made him laugh again. Carefully, so as not to press a sharp edge of a rock into his skin, he shifted his right arm slightly, towards her face, so that he could rest the backs of his fingers gently against her left cheek, not breaking contact with her lips.
As it always did, air became necessary for both of them, and since her head was already leaned against the rocky wall and there was therefore no space for her to lean back, he was the one who moved away slightly. As soon as he was more than a nose's distance from her, however, he felt too far away. After a split second glance to check that yes, the rain was still coming down in buckets, she leaned forward ever so slightly, just far enough that their noses pressed against each other. Her eyes closed them, and she sighed contentedly.
"I love you, too," she whispered over the sound of the rain.
"I like how that was your second response, after 'No talking,'" he chuckled, thoroughly amused.
With a shrug, she tilted her head slightly to one side, grinned and replied, "Sorry… I just needed to kiss you."
He shook his head at her, his smile not dimming. "That's just one more thing that you do not ever need to be sorry for, okay?" he asked her lightly.
This answer, of course, she'd been expecting. "I had a feeling you'd say something like that," she told him with a smile. Tilting his head so that his forehead rested against hers, he closed his eyes, just listening to the rain. With a smile that matched his, she did the same, and for more than a few minutes they stood just like that, leaned against the rocky ledge as they waited for the rain to stop – forehead to forehead with their eyes closed, appreciating the moment and each other, and even their wet feet. It was a small price to pay, after all.
His words from what felt like a million years ago tumbled through her head just then. "All of this led me to you. And you to me. And that is something that I would never want to undo."
Never in a million years could she have predicted that she would have ended up here. And yet, at that moment she could not think of anywhere else in the world that would be as perfect.
Maybe at home, snuggled under a blanket with him…? the voice in her head suggested helpfully.
Nope, she replied. There are some things that are meant to happen. This is one of them. Though I'm definitely looking forward to being at home and snuggled under a blanket with him again in the not too distant future, that's for sure.
As she pulled herself back out of her thoughts and once again became conscious of the fact that her forehead was still leaned against his, she was flooded with a sensation that she had still not gotten used to again – happiness. In some ways, she wondered if maybe she was afraid to get used to it again. After all, she knew how much it hurt to lose it. To lose him. At that moment, however, she was tempted to think that it would be a mistake to resist the way she felt about him. After all, Kurt was clearly not going to give up on her. Surely he had proven that at this point, by following her here…
Inhaling deeply, she took her time as she exhaled the same breath, once again reminding herself that it was all real. This would've been one hell of a horrible thing to wake up from, after all.
"Pinch me," she told him quietly.
"Why?" he asked in amusement. "You're not dreaming." When she didn't reply, he knew that she wasn't convinced. Leaning back, he looked at her expression. Her eyes were still closed, but he was pretty sure he was reading her correctly. "Jane," he said softly. When she didn't reply or open her eyes, he tried again. "Jane, look at me." Slowly, her eyes blinked open. His right thumb was moving across her left cheek, and for more than a minute, they simply looked into each other's eyes.
Finally, he broke the silence quietly. "Do you still want me to pinch you?"
"No," she whispered. What had been a more serious face curved slowly into a smile. That was when she noticed that the rain had stopped once again. She lowered the umbrella that she'd been holding over them, waiting tentatively to see whether there was any remaining drizzle. There wasn't.
Looking over his shoulder at the lack of rain, and at the now much brighter sky, he smiled as well. "Looks like it's time to keep walking."
"As much as I'm enjoying these rain delays," Jane said with a grin, "I hope it can stay clear this afternoon so the ground can dry out. I'd rather we didn't have to sleep in the mud tonight."
His arms had slipped to her waist, and he looked at her mischievously once again. "I'd sleep with you in the mud," he told her.
"I'm sure you would," she replied, raising her eyebrows at his indistinct implication. "But let's hope it doesn't come to that. At least until we're within a day of a shower."
"I think I can wait that long," he grinned as she stepped around him to clip the umbrella to the back of his backpack once again. The back side had clearly gotten rained on, and she wondered how the things inside had fared. Not that it mattered as much as the fact that they were both there, together.
"What am I going to do with you?" she asked with a laugh as they fell into step side by side.
"Sleep with me in the mud, apparently," he told her with a grin, as she slapped him playfully with the back of her hand. He grabbed her hand and held onto it securely as she just shook her head at him, smiling happily.
Thankfully, the ground they were currently walking on was still rocky, because there was a distinct lack of mud here. Further along, they might not be so lucky, depending on the weather.
Her back was wet, as was her backpack, and probably everything inside, along with her feet and her legs up to almost her knees. And yet, it didn't bother her a bit. The sun was peeking out of the clouds, brightening the landscape significantly, and already casting away any chill in the air, but mostly, it had to do with the man beside her. She could have faced a journey ten times as long as the one that lay ahead of them and it would not have mattered. They were there together, and that was all she needed.
