Author's Note: This one's a little bit shorter, sorry! I'm still adjusting the ending, so I wanted to buy myself another week. It should be two chapters more, at most.

Remi had gone quiet. Normally, he'd be relishing the chance to just hold her, stroke her hair, enjoy the moment, but Kurt couldn't help but worry about what was going on in her head.

This had been the first time Remi had made love to him. Sure, they'd had slow, decadent sex before, but always because he'd bargained it out of her, in exchange for the wilder, more kinky encounters they had. But today…

Fuck.

She'd actually dropped her guard, at least most of the time. He could barely believe it, but she'd admitted that she loved him, in every way except verbally. He'd gotten more than he'd dared to hope for.

He wanted to know what came next, whether she'd come home for good, but he was too afraid to ask, not wanting to pressure her. Did his love add to her emotional burden, or ease it? Where could he start the discussion without alarming her?

Remi sighed against his chest. "You're thinking too hard. Just say it."

Despite his fears, he couldn't help but smile a little at her directness. "You sure?"

There was a hint of discomfort in her voice, now. "As sure as I can be."

He paused for a moment, choosing his wording. "If I asked you again to come home…would you want that?"

"This isn't about what I want, Kurt."

Kurt frowned up at the ceiling, not following her train of thought. "How so?"

"What I mean is… Jane fits here. In your home, in your life. I don't think I can walk in her footsteps anymore."

"That's not what I want."

Remi froze, and he realised she'd taken the words in the worst possible way. Tightening his arms around her before she could start to fight free of them, he elaborated, "You don't have to pretend to be someone you're not. You can just be you."

She sighed, letting herself relax again, though not to the point she'd been before. Her voice was weary, despairing. "You haven't been listening. I don't know what that means anymore. That's why I wanted the ZIP."

Kurt tried to swallow the lump in his throat, wishing he could take away her uncertainty and pain. What could he say or do to reassure her, besides telling her he loved her, and wanted her in his life?

Before he could figure it out, Remi broke the silence again. "I don't fit here. I won't go back to the FBI—even if I wanted to, which I don't, Reade will never forgive me. Zapata…I can't forgive her for what she did, selling out Roman to the woman who killed him. Rich and Patterson… I don't know what they even think of me now. And Allie? You can't tell me she'd be thrilled to have me around your daughter."

She'd really thought about this, in enough detail that it gave Kurt hope. She'd tried to imagine fitting in, back in New York. Part of her wanted that. Focus on that.

"Maybe the FBI isn't where you belong anymore," he started slowly, trying to work out the best approach. "But don't count the team out until you've talked to them. As for Allie… Sure, she'll have concerns. But she trusts me, and she knows I'd never put our kid in harm's way. You've had the chance to hurt Bethany before, and you didn't. Allie will get to know you better, over time."

Remi was silent, and he thought back to what she'd almost said earlier. It's not you I don't trust.

That had been a huge revelation, one that had almost made her panic. But she'd fought her fear of vulnerability, and she'd stayed. He'd been honestly stunned that she had. Every time he thought he could predict her limits, she pushed out of her comfort zone. For him.

"If I don't have a job, I don't have anything but you. That's not gonna work. It wasn't working in Colorado—Jane already told you that."

"I know. But you don't have to commit to a new career right away. You can try different things—see what fits. Go back to school, if you want."

Remi snorted. "I hated school."

He rolled his eyes, knowing she couldn't see him. "Are you gonna think about this, or are you gonna shoot down everything I say?"

"Haven't decided yet," she retorted, an edge to her voice.

Kurt waited, breathing away his irritation. It wouldn't help to provoke her even more.

With a sigh, she turned over onto her back, leaving his embrace. Scowling, she told the ceiling, "When I try to imagine my future, I just get…nothing. It's hopeless."

Despite her expression, there was a bleak note to her voice that made his heart ache. He took her hand, wanting to connect with her somehow, across the inches of distance she'd put between their bodies.

"Take that nothing, and put me in it. Me, and the apartment. Work, and the team, and Bethany…those things can all come later. Just start with me. Withus."

"You're my starting point?" she murmured, a bittersweet smile pulling at the corners of her lips.

He rolled onto his side, kissed her bare shoulder. "Always."

Remi turned her face away from him, as though not wanting to reject his advance, but feeling too emotionally raw to meet his gaze. "I underestimated how far the ZIP would go," she admitted softly.

He stayed quiet for a moment, putting mental jigsaw pieces together. "You mean, how you'd end up after you took it?"

"How much Jane would let you in." She shrugged. "When I get scared, I push people away. But Jane… She dropped her defences. She showed you her soul, without you even needing to earn it."

She was drowning, just like you are now. She didn't know who she was. Kurt swallowed the words, knowing any comparison between Remi and Jane was a sure way to aggravate her.

"When I came back to myself, I couldn't believe how much of me you knew. How well you could sense when something was wrong. How many of Jane's fears and doubts she'd trusted you with. You could have torn her apart and made her into your puppet. Part of me thought that was what you'd done."

"I remember." How could he ever forget those harsh words?She was a blank slate when she crawled out of that bag, and you made her into exactly what you needed her to be.

Kurt had vehemently denied it at the time, but her opinion had worked into his mind like a splinter, irritating and painful. Part of him had always worried he was taking advantage of Jane's confusion and need for connection, right from the moment he'd realised she had feelings for him. It was why he'd made such an abrupt exit from her safehouse, the night she'd told him he was her starting point.

After they'd become a couple, Jane had assuaged his concerns, pointing out that she'd been the one to make all the initial advances, and that her time at the black site would have wiped away any infatuation based solely on their power dynamic. But still, Remi's barbed assessment had struck a nerve, especially since it had come from the lips he'd kissed thousands of times.

"Between that and Sandstorm's fall, and then finding out I was dying…" She glanced over at him, then away again, and he caught a glimpse of shame in her expression. "I made you into what I needed you to be. An enemy."

"You needed something to fight." He'd always understood that. It was just part of who she was—Jane or Remi, or whatever blend of the two she'd become, she'd always hated being helpless.

Remi swallowed hard, her jaw set so firmly that Kurt suspected she was fighting tears. But if there was one thing he'd learned about Remi, it was when he should keep his distance and let her come to him.

He squeezed her hand, letting her know that he was there for her, but said nothing else.

After a minute, she gritted out, "If I move back in here, I'll do it again."

Her mind had gone somewhere he couldn't follow, right when it was most critically important that he listen and understand. He was failing her, and the thought sent an instinctive, sick jolt through his system before he quelled it. "Do what again?"

Remi shot him a quick, impatient glance. "Make you an enemy. Fight you. Because fighting is the only thing I know how to do, and you're the only one left."

Oh, Remi.

He would have to tread so carefully. There was a high chance that she'd just laugh derisively and begin pulling on her clothes. But if she didn't…maybe he could start to stitch this raw emotional wound, the way he'd stitched the gash across his name on her back, last year.

"You can fight without having an enemy."

"What, you want me to shadow-box my way through life?"

Part of him was tempted to argue that she already was, but that would only piss her off.

"I'm not talking about swinging at the empty air."

He braced himself, knowing this was the moment she'd start to build up all her defences again, but there was nothing he could say to prevent it. She'd see right through empty platitudes, and this was the only other thing he could offer.

"I'm talking about a perspective change."

She glared across the foot of space that separated them. "I'm not going back to therapy, Weller."

"I didn't say therapy, unless that's what you want." It would make him the worst kind of hypocrite, given the way he'd wasted every mandatory session the FBI had thrown at him. "I'm saying, find something to fight for. Not something to fight against."

As he'd known she would, Remi rolled her eyes. "To protect and serve, like you?"

He ignored her bait. "When you were in the orphanage with Roman, and you got into fights with the other kids, did you fight because you'd been planning to hurt them? Or were you were making sure they wouldn't come after your brother?"

"That was different. I was a child, being held against my will." She pulled her hand from his and sat up, avoiding his gaze.

Kurt's heart sank. He was losing her, and he had no idea what he could do to bring her around.

"Back when you were under as Jane, and Oscar was giving you missions, did you do them because you thought it was right, or because you wanted to stop Sandstorm from killing me?" He pushed himself upright, too.

"I don't remember," she mumbled, swinging her legs off the edge of the bed, then reaching for her clothes.

"Yes, you do." He wasn't completely sure of it, but it seemed likely that she'd regained those memories. "And this whole time you've been gone, you haven't been running because you're trying to hurt me. You've been protecting yourself. Fighting for yourself, not against me."

She froze for the briefest instant, then pulled her shirt over her head. "You don't know anything."

"You already told me it was for self-defence." He shifted across the bed to catch her eye, gently turning her face to his. "And right now, you're trying to run because you're doing it again."

"I'm trying to protect you, you idiot," she retorted sharply. "Not myself."

She'd meant it as a rebuke, but he saw through the irritation to her sincere intent, and warmth built in his chest. "I love you, too."

Remi rolled her eyes again, but he sensed she was close to surrender.

"You've hurt me. I won't deny that. We've both said terrible things to each other, and we probably will again. But it'll hurt way more to see you leave, not knowing if you'll ever come back. It scares the hell out of me, knowing you'll be out there alone, wishing for death while you're fighting people who are trying to make that happen. If you want to protect me, protect me from that."

Her shoulders sagged, and he caught a glimpse of the emotional weight that was dragging her down—a vast, dark weariness and sense of futility that she quickly masked.

"I'll stay the night," she said quietly.

It was a small concession to his fears, but under the circumstances, it felt monumental. As long as she was there, breathing, physically safe, he could deal with whatever she threw at him—or at herself. "Thank you."