Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)

A/N: I apologize for the longer than usual break between chapters. My book is going ahead at full speed, and I was on vacation for a week and just got back. I haven't abandoned anything, it's just that having four projects going at once is a bit of a balancing act. As always, I hope you enjoy this chapter! Thanks for reading!

It had probably been more than five minutes, but it felt like no time at all. Kurt turned slightly and kissed her forehead before mumbling, "Alright, time to get up." She felt both the arm around her back and the hand on the back of her neck loosen reluctantly, and she couldn't help but sigh.

"I didn't agree to this," she grumbled.

He couldn't help but think how cute she was, even when she was grumbling, and he knew that she was at least partially joking. "Agree to what?" he asked, moving his cheek along her skin.

For a second she thought a little too hard, thinking about all of the things to which she hadn't agreed. But that hadn't been the way she'd meant it, and she forced all of the extra thoughts from her mind. Suddenly realizing that he was watching her carefully, she looked up to see worry in his eyes, and smiled at him. She had known for a long time that he cared about her, but it always took her breath away to see that look in his eyes – the look that told her just how much he cared.

"I didn't agree to this whole morning thing," she replied with a smile. Chuckling, he brushed a hand against her cheek before slowly and carefully reaching out of the sleeping bag, behind her, to begin tugging at the zipper. While he did, she glanced in the other direction to where her white t-shirt had been flung, far out of her reach from her current position. The early morning air felt chilly on her face, and she had a feeling that they were about to be shocked into motion by the cold.

Kurt slowly tugged at the zipper, which involved moving even closer to Jane, who lay in between him and that edge of the sleeping bag. He certainly had no complaints about having to press against her, tightening his hold on her with his other hand on her back once more. Once he had tugged the zipper about three quarters of the way down, he let go of it and slowly moved back up to the position in which he'd woken up, once again loosening his hold on her back.

"It's going to get a little chilly in a second. You're probably going to want to jump up and go grab your clothes, before you get too cold. I know that's my plan – well, to jump up and get my clothes, not yours," he added, watching her smile at his words.

"Okay," she told him, tensing in anticipation. "I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

"One, two… three!" he called, flinging back the edge of the sleeping bag as if ripping off a band aid, feeling like if he did it faster it would hurt less. Jane squealed slightly at the sudden rush of cold air, rolling away from him enough to have space to push herself up to stand and jump as quickly as she could towards her clothes, grabbing one item at a time and throwing them on. Despite the cold, he lay there watching her for a few seconds, mesmerized. It had been far too long since he'd had the chance to watch her get dressed.

Before she was finished, however, he realized that he, too, was more than just a little cold, and pushed himself up as well, moving quickly towards his own clothes and pulling them on as fast as he could. Once the initial shock of the cold had been forgotten, he realized that the smile on her face was gone, her lips now forming a tight line.

"What's wrong, Jane?" he asked.

She sat back down, now well covered with the exception of her feet, at which she was staring accusingly, holding her socks in one hand but not putting them on. "Those blisters," she began, looking up at him, "I don't know what they look like under these band aids, but they hurt like hell. And I know we don't have extras, so I feel like I should leave them on for now…"

"Probably should," he agreed with a nod. His feet were pretty sore as well, he realized, but she looked like she was in serious pain.

"You don't have any painkillers in that super bag of yours, do you?" she asked jokingly. While he didn't necessarily remember packing the bag, having been slightly frantic at the time, he did remember that painkillers had been on Patterson's packing list, so he decided that they were probably in there somewhere. After all, he'd made sure to pack everything Patterson had recommended.

"I should," he replied, retrieving his pack from the other tarp and sitting down beside her. With the clothes taken out, it was easier to look through his bag, and he found them without too much trouble. He put two pills into her hand, also handing her a half full water bottle. "There you go."

"Thanks. Your feet don't hurt?" she asked in surprise after quickly downing the pills.

"Yes, but they're not that bad," he said, still watching her. "But I suppose I should take some preemptively. We've got another rough day ahead of us." After he'd swallowed two pills and stowed the bottle in his pack once more, he looked at the spot where last night's campfire had burned out. What he wouldn't do for there to be a fire there just then, because he was still feeling the chill of the morning air.

As if reading his mind, she reached over and squeezed his hand. He noticed that her skin felt cold against his, and he looked at her in surprise. "Your hand is freezing. Are you warm enough?" he asked.

"I'm wearing at least three layers," she replied between clenched teeth. "I'll be fine. I'll warm up as soon as we start moving." With one more glance at her feet, she began gingerly pulling on her socks, the look on her face telling him that even just the contact with the cotton was hurting them. He quickly tied up his own boots and then stood up, watching her move as if in slow motion.

As much as he hated that she seemed to be in pain, there wasn't anything he could do about it just then. After all, they had to keep moving. Being stuck on this mountain when food and water supplies ran out became a greater and greater possibility the slower they moved, and he could only assume from the pain she seemed to be in that they were not going to be making up the time that they'd already lost. In fact, it seemed likely that they'd be losing quite a bit more time that day.

Instead, while she struggled with her boots, be began organizing their now relatively dry clothes, into piles. Neither of them had very much, and he had quickly gathered it all. He pushed his pile back into his backpack, then grabbed her backpack and did the same for hers. She had moved off of the sleeping bag onto the tarp, and he rolled up the sleeping bag, finishing just as she stood up with a low moan. She looked as if she was looking for something to hold onto.

"Hey, are you okay?" he asked, dropping the backpack to step quickly over to where she was standing and catching her around the waist just before she lost her balance. "Your feet hurt that badly?"

"Yeah," she replied through clenched teeth. "They were fine until I stood up the first time. But how the hell are we going to get down the mountain if I can't even stand up without my feet feeling like they're on fire?"

Secretly, he worried about the same thing, but he opted for calm. If there was one thing he didn't want her doing, it was worrying any more than she already was. They were going to make it, after all. He hadn't traveled to the ends of the Earth to find her just to have them not make it back home. As hard as this ordeal was, he couldn't help but think that the hard part – finding her – was over. They'd overcome greater odds in the past, after all – hadn't they?

"Hey, it's going to be fine," he told her soothingly. "Sit back down for a second while I finish getting everything together." She nodded and sat back down on the tarp that their sleeping bag had been on a minute before, watching him worriedly without a word. He joined her shortly thereafter, and after eating just a little more from their dwindling food supply and brushing their teeth, rinsing their toothpaste out with as little of their dwindling water supply as possible, the only thing that remained was for them to be on their way.

Kurt stood up first and then helped her up slowly. "Let me just get that tarp, okay?" he asked, hoping she could stand on her own for long enough for him to put it away. A minute later, he was back by her side, helping her balance as he lifted his backpack carefully onto his back.

"Would you hand me my bag, please?" she asked, not wanting to bend down if it wasn't necessary.

"I got it, don't worry," he assured her.

"Kurt, don't be ridiculous," he told her. "You're already carrying most of the gear in the big bag, plus your smaller backpack. Just hand it to me. I can carry it."

Though he was more than willing to carry it himself, he relented, knowing that she couldn't stand situations like this, where she had no control. Once the bag situation was figured out, he wrapped his left arm around her waist so that she could lean against him. Her right arm was braced tightly across his back, and they began walking slowly, tentatively.

It would be one thing is one foot hurt, she thought, but both of them?

She tried not to think about it, but it wasn't easy to think of anything else. When she glanced up at him, the movement made him look down at her. She did her best to force a smile, even knowing that he wouldn't be fooled.

"Hang in there, okay?" he told her quietly, and she just nodded, saying nothing. Most of her focus was on not wincing when her feet touched the ground, which took intense concentration. He'd toyed with the idea of carrying her, and hadn't ruled it out, even though he knew that it wasn't something that he could do for the rest of the way down the mountain. It remained an option if things got worse, however.

They continued to make slow progress for almost two hours, but their pace had lessened substantially from even their initial unhurried speed. "We need to stop for a few minutes," he told her, pulling her to a stop. She made no attempt to argue, having fought valiantly for the past two hours to keep walking despite how much pain she was in. In under a minute he had the tarp open on the ground again, spreading it all the way out so that none of the clean area would come in contact with the dirt below, as it would have if it had been folded.

He took the backpack from her, setting it down within arm's reach so that he could continue to help hold her up, and then helped her lower herself onto the tarp. There she quickly reclined until she was laying on her back, and by the time he had set his own gear down, her eyes were closed. Lying on his side beside her, his left elbow propped up against the ground to support himself, he looked at her with concern. Her right hand rested on her stomach, and he reached for it with his right hand, clasping his fingers around hers and squeezing gently.

"Hey," he whispered. "Are you okay?" As soon as the words left his mouth, he felt ridiculous. Of course she wasn't okay. Neither of them were, really, but especially her.

"I'm fine," she replied quickly, automatically. She hadn't even thought about it, simply uttered the words in response to his question. It made her realize just how completely she had programmed herself to believe that she was fine, even when it was blatantly obvious that in reality, she wasn't.

But dwelling on what's not okay wouldn't do any good, she rationalized.

Through the hand resting on her stomach he felt the change in her breathing as soon as she insisted she was fine. She was taking deep breaths, as if she was anything but fine.

"Jane," he murmured in a low voice. When she opened her eyes, he realized that he'd needed the reassurance of looking into hers just as much as she might have needed the reassurance of looking into his. Even though her expression was full of worry, just the fact that he could look into her eyes helped to steady him. After all, she was there in front of him, not a figment of his imagination as she'd had to be for so long.

As she watched him with a worried expression, he smiled back at her. "Everything's going to be okay," he whispered.

"You can't know that," she murmured, to his surprise. "We don't exactly have a great track record."

"Actually, I'd argue the opposite," he told her. "If anything, the fact that we're alive at all shows just how lucky we are. Think about it… the number of times one or both of us almost died."

"Are you sure you want to tempt fate with a statement like that?" she asked him uneasily.

"I'm getting us home, we're going to find Patterson, Zapata and Reade, and then we're going to curl up and sleep for a week," he told her.

"Mmmmmm," she mumbled, closing her eyes again as a hint of a smile crossed her lips for the first time since she'd first stood up that morning. "Sounds good." Then, after inhaling slowly and deeply, she opened her eyes again and, with a new resolve, told him, "Come on, let's get going."

"You sure?" he asked uncertainly. They hadn't been resting very long, after all.

"We're not going to get home if we lie here," she replied.

"No," he agreed slowly, "But I don't want you to push yourself too hard."

"Kurt," she said, a little more forcefully than even she'd expected. "We're going to run out of food and water in a few days, aren't we?"

"Well, it's a possibility…" he admitted. "We just have to make it to the village at the bottom of the mountain."

"Exactly. I've already slowed us down enough. So we need to get going."

There was no arguing with the look on her face, he already knew. Besides that, her logic was correct – running out of food and/or water would both be very bad, but at the pace they were going, that's exactly what was going to happen. Despite how grim things looked, he couldn't help but smile at her then. After all, her determination was one of the many things that he loved about her.

He stood up, turned around in front of her and helped her up as well. Once her backpack was on her back, she held onto him tightly for support on her aching feet while he quickly folded the tarp back up and settled their remaining belongings on his back. Now ready to move once again, he wrapped an arm tightly around the middle of her, watching her flinch with every step. He would've given anything to have the luxury of letting her rest longer.

"Did I ever tell you about the time Taylor broke her ankle?" he asked as they moved slowly forward. He hated that he could feel exactly how much each step was hurting Jane because their arms were wrapped so tightly around each other's sides. The only slightly positive aspect he could find in all this was that she had a reason to lean on him heavily. About that, he certainly had no complaints.

"No," she replied through clenched teeth. There had been a long time when he wouldn't have voluntarily have brought up Taylor under any circumstances, considering how everything had unraveled around the long since dead girl in their past, but thankfully, those days were over. It had been a relief when they'd gradually started to be able to talk about her again, though it had taken a long time. She knew that right now he was bringing her up as a distraction, but that was fine with her. Hearing stories from his past was a treat, and she only wished that she had some with which she could reciprocate.

"She'd been running after me, as usual," he explained, smiling at the memory and at the same time, unconsciously pulling Jane closer. It didn't matter that she wasn't Taylor and that they both knew it. She was so closely associated with Taylor in his mind, because of the way everything had gone, that in a way, she almost was. One reminded him of the other, for better or worse.

This connection been Jane and Taylor in his mind had stung viciously at first, but now it had become quite the opposite. For every ounce of pain that came from thinking of Taylor, thinking of Jane was a balm that removed the sting. They were almost like two sides of a coin, despite not being the same person and having been separated by twenty-five years. It didn't make sense, and yet at the same time it made perfect sense.

"I must have been farther up the street and she was trying to catch up with me… I can't remember now," he told her, thinking back to that day. "She was running full out, across the grass next to the sidewalk – because after about a thousand scraped knees I had finally convinced her that running in the grass was safer." He shook his head at himself and at the memory.

"She was still a little ways back – ten feet or so before she caught up with me – when I guess she twisted it wrong or something, and she fell down wrong, with all her weight on it in just the wrong way…" The smile on his face became a grimace as he thought back to the little girl, shrieking in pain. "I honestly don't know how she did it. One second, she was running, the next… I was kneeling over her in the grass."

While it didn't make Jane's feet feel any better, Kurt's story distracted her enough that she stopped feeling agony in every step. She wasn't quite as conscious of the pain as she imagined a young Taylor Shaw in even more pain than she herself was just then. Poor kid, she couldn't help but think.

"So once I determined that it was her ankle that was the problem, I picked her up and walked three miles to the doctor's office. Thankfully they were open."

"You carried her three miles?" Jane asked in surprise. It was hard for her to see his face, even when she looked up, and at that moment she wished that she could see it better. In his profile, however, she saw him smile and look in her direction.

"I did, but it's not so impressive. She was so small, it was like she weighed nothing."

"But you also weren't as big as you are now," she pointed out. "You were just a kid, too."

"True," he conceded. "But I was big enough, and there was no other choice. Her mom was at work, my dad was…" he shrugged. "Who knows where? Maybe work… maybe just somewhere else. There were no cell phones back then. She needed to get to the doctor, so I took her."

Jane couldn't help but smile, because not only did that sound exactly like something that he would do, but it was as though his sense of duty had been ingrained in him at birth. There was a job to do, and he did it. End of story. When it came to Taylor, she knew that he would've walked a lot farther if it had been necessary.

"So did you have to carry her home, too?" Jane asked. "After she saw the doctor?"

"No, the receptionist took pity on us and drove us home. It was a small town, and the office wasn't that busy, so the doctor didn't mind. So we went back and hung out at her house. I made her chocolate chip cookies," he said proudly.

"Really?" Jane asked in surprise. "How old were you then?" Since he'd been ten when she'd disappeared, he'd been young no matter when it had been.

"Nine and a half," he told her with a hint of sadness in his voice. The shadow that crossed his face lasted only a few intense seconds. It was easier to remember Taylor now, but every now and then, one of the details would sting more than the others.

Jane had been holding onto him tightly since she'd stood up, but he felt her arm squeeze just a little tighter around him for a few seconds. He breathed in and out carefully a few times, and the feeling passed. The scar on his soul was never going to heal completely, but it was easier to bear with Jane there, holding onto him.

"The doctor had said she needed to rest for at least two weeks, and to stay off of it pretty much completely," he said. "So I gave her a piggy back ride to and from school, and at home we played a lot of board games and watched her favorite movies on VHS. Do you remember those?" When she nodded, he continued. "I believe those two movies were The Care Bears and Scooby Doo. And when we were bored of being inside, I would give her a piggy back ride out to our secret hide out in the woods in the back yard, and bring a blanket for her to sit on." Unable to help himself, he smiled at the memory. "Every time we went out there during those weeks, she made me play this game where she was the queen, sitting on her blanket throne, and I was the subject who had to wait on her."

Jane giggled then. "Not the king? Not even the prince?" she asked in surprise.

"What can I say? The kid had delusions of grandeur," he told her with a grin, looking down at her as best as he could from the awkward angle. "And I'm glad I indulged them while I had the chance," he added in a softer voice.

There were times when he talked about Taylor when she felt her heart breaking for him all over again, and this was one of those times. She couldn't imagine what it must be like, to have memories that were that old and that painful. It had been a few years now since she had become Jane, yes, and heaven knew that there were intensely painful parts of her recent past – thinking that she had lost him, for example. Even so, she could only imagine what he still went through when he thought of Taylor. She simply had nothing to which she could compare such an old memory.

He'd suddenly turned the conversation much more serious than he'd meant to, and he realized it when he looked down at Jane and saw a concerned look in her eyes. That look told him that she was worried about him. It shouldn't have been surprising this time, because she was especially alert to changes in his mood any time he mentioned Taylor. The same thing happened, in the reverse, every time she mentioned the people who had shaped her own past – Shepherd, Oscar… basically, anyone she'd known before him, since it seemed that those few people she could remember from before had been part of Sandstorm. These conversations also set him on alert the same way, so that he was ready to support her if it was needed. This balance was why it worked, though. Neither of them could erase their pasts, but they both worried so much about the other that those pasts were kept at bay – at least most of the time.

She leaned her head against his shoulder. It made walking a little harder, but at that second it seemed necessary. Without a word, he leaned down and kissed the top of her head. Even without saying anything, they'd said absolutely everything they needed to say.

It had been a while since Jane had focused on the pain from her feet, which she now suddenly felt again. Ignoring it the best she could, she continued pushing through it. There was nothing else that could be done, since he couldn't carry her – though he said otherwise – and resting was not an option. So she hobbled along, saying nothing about the pain and doing her best to pretend that she was fine. Their situation was becoming increasingly dire, but they were still standing, still together.

Jane was once again lost in her thoughts, concentrating on telling herself that her feet did not hurt, despite the fact that she knew better, when Kurt suddenly came to a complete stop without warning. Lurching slightly forward in surprise, she struggled to keep her balance, turning towards him to see what was wrong.

"Whoa, what—" she started, but he quickly brought a finger to her lips to stop her from saying anything else, gesturing off to the left side of the path. There, on a rocky outcropping along the edge of the slope, after which the land fell sharply downwards, were two eyes staring at them from a light-colored, spotted, furry face. Jane stiffened, not sure what it was or whether or not they were in danger. It wasn't as though she could run from it, after all, if that was even necessary.

"It's a snow leopard," Kurt whispered beside her ear, not wanting to make any more noise than absolutely necessary.

"Are they dangerous?" she whispered back, trying to both put her mouth as close to his ear as she could while also not taking her eyes off of the animal.

"They're not supposed to be, at least not to humans," he whispered back. "That's what I've read, anyway."

"I'd hate to be the exception, though," she ventured quietly, still uneasy despite the animal's beauty. There was nothing that said that it couldn't be both beautiful and deadly, after all. His face was so close to hers that she felt him nod as the two of them stared at the animal, who barely blinked at all as it stared back at them, for another full minute.

"Come on," he whispered. "We should go."

"For a couple reasons," she agreed. As they walked away, they had to take their eyes off of the snow leopard, which made Jane very nervous. Several times she looked back to where they'd seen it, but it was no longer there. Panic surged through her and she scanned the area around them quickly, but saw no signs of it elsewhere, either. If it decided to attack them, no matter how non-aggressive they allegedly were, they would have no good way to defend themselves. At least none that she knew of. She didn't have a gun or anything bigger than a pocket knife with her, though she wasn't sure about Kurt.

"It's gone," she whispered as they walked, now with a sense of unease. "Do you think it's still watching us?"

"I don't know," he replied. "Let's just hope it's moved on to hunt something besides us."

"Yeah," she agreed softly, looking around again and craning her neck in several different directions before settling down to look out in front of them.

There shouldn't be anything to be afraid of, at least from the snow leopard, he knew, but this was a matter of life and death. More specifically, of Jane's life. Okay, no, he didn't want to die either, but the thought of something happening to Jane was far more terrifying than the thought of the same fate befalling him. Up until now, they hadn't seen any wildlife, but this had been a reminder that it was out there, and that the two of them were vulnerable not only to the elements, but to all of nature.

Though most of the wildlife of Tibet that he knew of was harmless to humans, the Tibetan wolf was a different story. They were known to kill mainly livestock, he had been told in the village at the base of the mountain, but that was mostly because those were the animals who were the left outside. Depending on the abundance of their regular food sources, two humans may or may not have looked like attractive alternatives. There was really nothing they could do but stay alert to the danger, however. And then there was the fact that if they saw a wolf, he wasn't quite sure what they would have done. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that.

She was tense against him, he noticed, and from her slightly heavier breathing he guessed that she was pushing herself too hard. He wasn't quite sure how long it had been since their last break – at least a few hours, judging from the sun's position – but that didn't really matter. If she wore herself out, they'd be worse off no matter what time it was.

"Jane, let's take a rest. Just a few minutes," he told her.

"No, I'm fine," she insisted. The effort that it took her to speak while she kept walking was obvious, and it made her heavy breathing that much more pronounced.

"Either we take a break or I carry you," he told her sternly, which earned him a heavy sigh.

"You can't carry me, Kurt. At least not far enough to make any difference," she argued.

"Well, then I suggest you stop and take a break, before I start trying," he said insistently.

With a sigh, she stopped, and if he wasn't mistaken, she leaned against him even harder. "You don't need a break, huh?" he asked, speaking into her ear, and she glared at him from an angle that he couldn't see. She hated that he'd called her bluff.

He got to work quickly spreading out the tarp once more, and she all but collapsed onto it as soon as he moved out of the way. Lowering himself down beside her where she was once again lying on her back, he had an idea.

"Scoot back into the middle of the tarp," he told her, rubbing her knee gently. "I thought of something that might help." Without questioning him and without sitting up, she scooted back as requested, one arm folded under her head. "Okay, now let's see how it feels if we prop your feet up on my pack," he said, sliding a hand under her feet and lifting them gently so that he could slide the larger backpack under her ankles. Sliding back over so that he was lying beside her on his right side, he noticed that she had closed her eyes. He smiled worriedly at her as he stroked her cheek with the backs of the fingers on his left hand, "Better?" he asked quietly, becoming more and more concerned about her.

"Yeah," she whispered. "Thanks." She opened her eyes and looked at him, and it was clear to him that she was in pain.

"Why didn't you tell me you needed a break?" he asked her accusingly, yet gently.

"Because I'm fine. And we have to get down this damn mountain," she replied stubbornly.

All he could do was roll his eyes. "You are not fine," he corrected her, frustrated with her disregard for her own wellbeing.

"I've had a lot worse," she whispered then, shivering with the memories of how many things she had been put through that were physically much more painful than feet covered blisters.

As sternly as he'd been speaking to her, he couldn't help but feel her pain tugging at his heart. He was only being hard on her because he was worried about her, after all, and at that moment the ability to dish out tough love was gone. "I know you have, but that doesn't mean you're fine," he told her soothingly. "I'm trying to take care of you, you know."

Her smile was sad as she watched him, his face looking down at hers from such a short distance. "I don't make it easy, do I?" she asked.

"No, you certainly don't," he replied. She smiled then, an exhausted smile, and he leaned his forehead down against hers, closing his eyes. Maybe he hadn't needed this break quite as much as she had, but he realized only then that he had also needed it.

Lifting up his head, he used his left hand to smooth back her hair.

"We're going to rest here for a little while, and then we'll get up and keep walking. We still have at least a few hours of daylight left," he told her. "Okay?"

Knowing that he wasn't actually asking, but telling her, she nodded with a heavy sigh. To tell the truth, laying down with her feet up was a relief, even though it felt selfish. She was surprised when her eyes felt heavy a few minutes later, and because he'd told her to rest, she didn't fight it when weariness caught up with her. Instead, she let herself drop off to sleep.

Her sleep was anything but restful, however, because it was soon Oscar's face that loomed large in front of her. Though it was a dream, it was also a memory. Up to this point on their journey home, she'd been able to keep most of those memories, the ones that had caused her to flee in the first place, at bay. This wasn't something that her mind was making up, but something that had really happened, and in a way that made it worse.

As if that wasn't bad enough, unlike when she'd worked with the FBI for the first year or two, she now remembered the emotions that accompanied her memories. Instead of feeling nothing when she thought of Oscar, she could actually remember how she'd felt about him. Of course, knowing now what he had done in the name of his supposed "love" for her, and of their country, her feelings had changed… but it was all just so much more complicated than it had been when all she had were a few black and white flashes with no emotions attached. Ironically, though she'd wanted nothing more than to remember for so long, now she wished she had never remembered any of it.

Though it was a dream, it felt just as real as the time she was remembering. That night, lying beside him, she had been perfectly content. Now, this time, all she knew was that she didn't want Oscar anywhere near her. And yet there he was, moving closer and closer. He was the same as he'd been in her memories, looking at her with love, even though she was now a different person. The result was at best a disconcerting mix of past and present, real and fictional.

Remi, he whispered, pushing back her long hair with one hand and leaning in to kiss her. She realized with a start that he was lying beside her in a familiar bed, and she turned her head violently, trying to get away from him.

Meanwhile, Kurt had been watching Jane carefully as she fell asleep. She'd looked so peaceful at first, but it hadn't been long before her face had creased in what looked like displeasure and maybe even… fear? He couldn't quite tell. When she turned her head away from him, murmuring "No, don't, I don't want…" he couldn't help but be concerned. Whatever was happening in her dream, she didn't like it.

"Jane,"Kurt whispered. "Jane, wake up." When she whimpered, turning her head a second time as if once again trying to get away from someone or something, he felt his heart aching for her all over again. "Hey, Jane, come on, wake up."

"Remi, I love you," Oscar was whispering to her, and Jane could feel herself beginning to panic. She knew that she wasn't Remi, that she didn't want to be Remi. She knew that it was a real memory somehow, and yet that it was also happening in a dream. But why couldn't she force herself out of it, if that was true? The fact that she couldn't break the spell was the thing that made her panic.

I have to get out of here, she thought more and more frantically as she tried to get away from Oscar. And yet, it felt like no matter what she did, he was still there in front of her, his mouth now almost on hers.

"NO!" she screamed in her dream, now breathless with panic and thrashing around helplessly as she tried to push herself away from Oscar. "You're not real!" He stopped and looked at her then, confused.

"Of course I'm real," he told her. "Why would you say that, Remi?"

"I'm not Remi," she told him adamantly. "I'm Jane. And I don't love you. I'm not her."

"But… you promised you would love me no matter what," he reminded her, looking both distraught and even angry. "Jane was never even a real person. That's who you were after we zipped you, the absence of Remi… but you were always Remi. You'll always be Remi. And now, on the other side of this… you're becoming Remi again. You can feel it, can't you? You're done being Jane. We don't need her anymore."

"NO," Jane replied adamantly in her dream. "I'm done being Remi. Shepherd made her a monster, but then you all did me the favor of erasing her. She's gone. And I'm sorry, but she's never coming back. No, you know what? I'm not sorry. She was a horrible, cruel, heartless person who didn't care who she hurt. But the ends do not justify the means. Whoever I was before, I will never be her again. So get out of my face, get out of my head, and get out of my dreams. I don't love you." She was yelling and out of breath, with tears running down her face. She felt beyond distraught – she was angry, exhausted, disgusted… Nearly everything that she could have felt over the strange situation was there, all at once.

Her breathing was coming in sharp bursts, and it was clear that she was having a nightmare from which she hadn't yet been able to wake up. Some of the words she was mumbling were intelligible, while others were not. He needed to wake her up, but he wasn't sure how. So far, he'd tried talking to her, and he'd tried shaking her shoulders gently, but neither had worked. Instead, whatever what was happening in her head was only getting more and more intense.

"Jane," he said, louder and more forcefully. "Jane. It's me, Kurt. You need to wake up, sweetheart. Come on… come back to me." In between the few words that he could make out, she'd been whimpering, but those whimpers were intensifying into moans, and the only thing he knew was that he had to make it stop.

"Jane," he said again, insistently, squeezing one of her hands and pressing it against his cheek. "Come on, Jane. Wake up now."

Almost in the same second, she let out a sharp gasp and pulled herself partway upwards, straight forward, trying to sit up. However, she didn't make it all the way up, since her legs were resting straight in front of her, on Kurt's backpack. Before she could fall backward, he reached forward to get his right arm behind her back, catching her, and them propping his knee up and lowering her back slightly so that she was braced against it and hugging her to him. Looking down, he saw that she was still not fully awake. She was pushing back against the gentle hold that he had on her, and he knew that he needed to wake her up fully before she used her considerable strength against him.

"Jane," he said quickly. Her eyes, which had yet to focus, snapped in his direction as her rapid breathing faltered, resulting in a gasp escaping her as she looked at him.

There she sat in Kurt's gentle yet firm hold, breathing heavily but no longer struggling. She was staring at him, and yet only just now beginning to actually register in her brain that she was seeing Kurt, not Oscar. Suddenly going weak with relief, she felt the tension, fear and frustration that had filled her veins until only a second before dissipate into nothing. If he hadn't been holding onto her, she would have collapsed right there.

Breathe, she told herself, it's okay. It's over.

"Kurt," was the only word she could manage, and it came out in a raspy whisper.

"Hey, welcome back," he told her, tightening his hold on her now that he didn't have to worry about making her feel trapped inside her nightmare. She was calming down slowly, and he could only wonder what had happened inside her head that had upset her that much. "Bad dream?"

He had moved closer, so that he was somewhere between behind her and next to her, and her head leaned heavily against his chest. Because of this, when she shook her head adamantly at the question, he felt it.

"It wasn't a dream," she whispered, her breathing accelerating again suddenly just thinking about it. "At least, it wasn't at first. I remembered it, the scene… It started out as a memory. It was Oscar." She said his name as if it tasted bad, then went on.

"I remembered how I felt about him, even. You know, before? And I knew where we were. Except that… of course I didn't feel that way anymore, I didn't want him near me… not after… everything… But he was lying there next to me, he wanted to kiss me… He kept calling me Remi and insisting that I'd promised to love him… Which wasn't wrong. Once upon a time, I did that. I remember that part. But I… I didn't let him get any closer. I couldn't, I—"

Suddenly she looked up at Kurt as if she'd only just realized what she was saying and who she was saying it to. Almost immediately, she began shaking her head as if doing so would pull the words back in. "I'm sorry, I didn't—"

"Hey, uh-uh, don't even think about apologizing. You didn't do anything wrong, Jane. You had a bad dream. That's all it was, even if it was a little bit mixed up with a memory. It got a little out of control, but it's okay. You're not Remi, and Oscar can't do anything to hurt you anymore."

"Because I killed him," she interjected miserably before he could continue.

"And if you hadn't, he would have zipped you, and you would have forgotten everything, all over again. You would have forgotten everything we'd been through, you and me, and who knows if you ever would have remembered any of it. You knew exactly how dangerous what he wanted to do to you was, because you'd already been through it once. You had no choice but to defend yourself. But he… he didn't have to threaten you that way. That was his choice. Right?"

"Yeah," she whispered without picking up her head from where it lay against his chest.

"You'reokay," he told her soothingly. He had wound his arms around her and was holding on tightly, then he bent down slightly to kiss the top of her head.

She nodded, saying nothing, only gulping air in to try to steady herself. She'd had lots of these nightmare memories since she'd started remembering, all since she'd left him, and waking up from them had always been bad enough to deter her from wanting to go to sleep for days. Even as many as she'd had, somehow they had never gotten any easier. Well, never until just now. As bad as waking up from this one had been, it had been better than any of the others, because he was there with her.

"Yeah," she whispered.

"Let's take a few more minutes here, and then we should try to get another few hours of walking in before dark," he told her, to which she nodded her agreement.

"Okay," she replied softly. For those few moments, she focused simply on breathing in and out, on letting her heart rate return to normal, and mostly, on the fact that it was Kurt whose arms were around her.

He was right… she was okay, and once again it was thanks to him.