Disclaimer: I do not own Jane or Kurt or Blindspot. Writing about them is simply the outlet for my obsession.

THE TEAM

The talk with Weller was not going well so far.

Reade, Zapata and Patterson sat in Kurt's office, the two women looking back at him anxiously while Reade's face was conflicted. They'd gone in together, none of them wanting to present the idea alone. They all loved Kurt like a brother and knew that he always had their backs, but an angry Kurt Weller was not something any of them wanted to face alone, if given the choice.

Patterson and Zapata had just finished explaining to him what Jane had said, and Kurt looked pissed. They had watched his jaw clench immediately, his face flushing slightly. It was clear that he was working hard to control his reaction, but his hands were balled up into fists before he knew it, and one of them pounded on his desk in frustration. He turned his head to look away from his team, toward the far side of the room, then closed his eyes and pursed his lips, taking a slow, deep breath.

In his head, Kurt counted to ten. Then twenty. Then thirty. He vowed to himself that he would not lose his temper.

When he finally opened his eyes and looked back at them, they saw barely controlled anger in his face. He shook his head slowly. "I told you," he said in a low voice, "I'm done with her."

Reade wasn't surprised, and waited for the onslaught of emotional pleas from Zapata and Patterson. He only had to wait a split second before they began.

"But, Weller…" Zapata was faster this time. "You… you have to at least talk to her. She obviously knows something, which is more than we know. This whole time we've been chasing our tails, just going in circles. We have a source right down the hall…" Zapata didn't think of Jane as a source, of course, but she had to get Weller in to talk to her somehow. Everything was riding on him.

"Weller… please," Patterson added. She had nothing concrete to add to what Zapata had said, at least not that she could think of just then, but she couldn't just sit there and say nothing. He just had to agree. It was that simple. Despite what she'd promised herself, she could feel tears forming behind her eyes. She'd never considered the fact that he would just refuse to talk to her. They all knew that it was possible, but… would he really do that? Surely he wouldn't…

Kurt sighed heavily and looked from one of them to another. How can I possibly put this into words, words that they'll understand? That they'll accept? he wondered in frustration.

"I don't know how to make you understand this," he started, as evenly as he could. He knew that they had good intentions, even though right now they were seriously pissing him off. "Nothing she has to say matters. We can't trust anything she says! She's not who she said she was. We don't know who the hell she is! She lied, lied to all of us. She was sent here by… I don't know who, to do I don't know what."

He took a quick breath, and then continued before either of them could protest again. "She's a traitor. And if that wasn't bad enough, she made me think that…" He paused then, overwhelmed. They all knew what had been between Kurt and Jane. Hell, they'd all seen it before he had. He simply couldn't bring himself to finish that sentence, so he started another. "She said she was Taylor—" His voice cracked when he said the name of his childhood best friend who he now knew had been dead all these years that he'd been searching for her – including the past year that he had thought that he'd found her again. It was like she'd just died all over again each and every time he said her name.

Patterson, now unable to hold it in any longer, couldn't listen to Weller's excuses anymore. Her words quickly escalated, and she was yelling at him before she finished her first sentence. "No Weller, yousaid she was Taylor! And Isaid she was Taylor, thanks to a DNA test that was clearly tampered with. You desperately wanted her to be Taylor – which we understand. You convinced her she was Taylor. And she lo—" She stopped herself, wondering how easily the others could complete her sentence. And she loved you, so she tried to be Taylor, for you, she'd wanted to say. But she wasn't sure that would help their case just then. That part had just slipped out.

Her voice was shaky now, but she was determined to finish speaking her mind. She was so angry with Kurt at that moment, she couldn't catch her breath. "You made her want to be Taylor. For you. The least you could do is not hold that against her." Then suddenly, without warning, Patterson looked stricken, as if something had just occurred to her that had caused her pain. "You don't know how lucky you are to have this chance," he told him, almost beside herself. "I'd give anything to have the chance to fix my mistakes." Her voice broke on the last few words, and more than one tear slid down her cheek. They all knew without her saying so that she was talking about David.

With that, Patterson stormed out of the room blindly, nearly colliding with an unsuspecting junior agent who had happened to be passing Kurt's office. There was a momentary commotion outside the door as the others sat perfectly still, dumbfounded at what had just happened, while Patterson helped the young agent pick up the documents he had dropped and then each continued on their way in opposite directions down the hall. Patterson's footprints beat an angry path down the hall and quickly disappeared.

Kurt looked at Zapata, eyes blazing. The fact that he didn't lose his temper easily was a point of pride with him, but he was close just then. He noticed that Zapata appeared to be at the opposite end of the spectrum of emotions of Patterson. She'd appeared angry when he'd first said no, but now she looked sad. Instead of blowing up at his as well, she simply watched him, and after several minutes he became impatient.

"Spit it out, Zapata," he told her bitterly. "Go ahead and tell me why this is all my fault. Why Jane being a traitor doesn't matter and I should just forget everything she did, all the ways she betrayed me. Betrayed us."

Zapata shook her head sadly, standing up and walking slowly up to his desk. When she spoke, there was something in her voice that he hadn't expected. It was… kindness. He had expected her to attack him, the way Patterson had.

"Weller," Zapata said with a sad smile, "I know that you feel betrayed. I don't claim to know what happened with Jane. It's pretty clear that she did something wrong, or I don't think she would've stayed silent for the past five days. But whatever it is she wants to tell you, don't you think you can forget for a second how you feel like she wronged you and just listen to her? Patterson's not wrong, you know. You – we – helped her become Taylor. She may be in the wrong, but we are, too. Not intentionally, but that doesn't change our part in it."

Kurt looked back at her defiantly, ready to argue, but she continued before he had a chance. "Would she have said she was Taylor without being told so many times that she was? We'll never know. What I do know is that if you don't hear her out, it'll be about a thousand times harder to figure out what happened, for one thing. And I know," she paused, hoping that he was really hearing what she was saying and not just waiting for her to stop talking, "that eventually, if you don't talk to her, you'll hate yourself. Even if you don't think so, I know you will."

He wanted to hate her for what she was saying now, and he wanted her to be wrong… but he took Zapata's words to heart because he knew that she was right, as much as he didn't want her to be. He knew that Zapata had impeccable instincts – it was what made her such a good agent. He also knew that no matter what he said, Zapata always had his best interests at heart.

Come to think of it, though perhaps her approach had been wrong, he knew that Patterson did, too. You trust these people with your life again and again, he reminded himself. Hell, you've trusted Jane with your life. She saved your life back when she had no reason to, and many times since then. Taylor or not, she saved your life. Traitor or not.

But… what if it was all a trick?

Zapata could see his expression changing before her eyes, and for a second there was a faraway look on his face, as though he was somewhere else. She hoped that it meant that she was getting through to him.

"Weller," she said, bringing him back to reality, "I told you a long time ago, she wasn't just an asset to you, back when the rest of us could all see it but you. And I stand by that. You weren't just a handler or a mark or any one thing to her, either. You want to tell yourself that it was all a lie, because it's easier that way, but I'm telling you, there's more to this. I just know it. I've seen the way she looked at you, and it was real." She stopped for a second, gathering her thoughts.

"We're not cartoon characters, and life isn't simple. It's not just black and white, good and evil. Besides, what's that thing you like to say?" She glanced away from him for a second as she thought, but then looked directly back into his eyes. 'We are more than our mistakes?' Something like that. We've all made plenty. And maybe hers are bigger, but… Just… think about it. Okay?"

Kurt sat looking up at Zapata, unable to reply. There were too many thoughts at war with each other inside his head just then, and words wouldn't come, so he just nodded up at her. She smiled at him then, walked around his desk and patted him on the shoulder without a word, then walked past him and out of his office, not looking back. He could be an idiot, but he was one of the most decent guys she knew, and she hoped that he would do the right thing.

Kurt and Reade were left looking at each other from across Kurt's desk. "What do you think?" Kurt asked him finally, suddenly exhausted.

"I don't know, man," Reade replied, shaking his head. "I'm the last one to defend her. I feel like I should've been more suspicious of her in the first place. Then maybe none of this would've happened…" Reade hung his head slightly, and Kurt suddenly realized that his agent blamed himself for Kurt's current predicament.

"This is not on you, man," Kurt said seriously. "This is all on me."

"I think that's another one of those absolutes that doesn't apply, though…" Reade replied. "And we can play 'Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda' all day, it won't help." He paused, and Kurt could sense that there was a "but" coming.

"But you want answers – no, you need answers. Did she lie to you, to us? It does look that way, yeah – so she lied about something, maybe a bunch of stuff... But do you really think it was all a lie? I don't claim to know her as well as you, and I'm pissed at her too. Being around her messed with your head, whether she did it on purpose or not. But the odds that all of it was a lie?" Reade stopped, looking genuinely confused, and shook his head.

"I just don't know. Is it possible? Sure. But is it likely…? I think she's mixed up in something, whether by choice or not, and the simplest way to find out about that something is to listen to her. There'll be truth in there, somewhere… And even if she does lie again, you'll find the truth one way or the other. It's what makes you so damn good at your job."

Kurt looked like he was going to say something, but Reade just shrugged and added, "I can't tell you what the right thing to do is, because I don't even know anymore…" He shook his head slowly, then he echoed Zapata's words from a few minutes before. "Just think about it, okay?" Reade stood up then, and started towards the hall. However, he paused at the doorway and turned back to look at Kurt. "We all want the truth, and this isn't an easy one. We need to use every resource we have. And remember, no matter what, we've got your back."

"Thanks, man," Kurt managed to choke out. He was otherwise speechless, simply watching Reade disappearing through his doorway.

Dammit, Jane, he thought with a heavy sigh. He didn't know what he was going to do, but his team's feelings on the subject were pretty clear. They want me to talk to her. But what do I think is the right thing to do?

JANE, PATTERSON AND ZAPATA

When Zapata left Reade and Weller in their boss' office, she went after Patterson. She had a strong hunch that she knew where she'd find her friend. Following the now familiar route, within minutes she did indeed find herself looking at Patterson, who was watching Jane through the windowed door of Interrogation Room 2. Walking up quietly behind the blonde, Zapata could see that she'd been crying again. She laid her hand on Patterson's shoulder, at which her friend turned towards her, and it was all Zapata could do to catch her in a hug so that the other girl didn't fall down.

"It's not fair," she sobbed into Zapata's shoulder. "It's not supposed to be like this. None of it. Not David, not Jane and Weller…"

"I know," Zapata said softly. After all, what else could she say? She gave her a few minutes, just standing still and holding onto her, until Patterson seemed to have calmed down.

"Sorry," Patterson whispered, stepping back and wiping her eyes. She looked into the room at Jane, in her usual spot on the floor.

"Don't be sorry," Zapata told her. Then, hoping to change the tone of the conversation and distract Patterson from her heartache, Zapata looked first at Jane and then back at Patterson before asking, "We're going in there, right?"

Patterson nodded slowly, smiling through the tears that she was still trying to stop from falling. Of course we're going in, she thought.

Patterson unlocked the door and the two went in for the first time together, smiling when Jane looked up and seemed surprised to see both of them there at the same time. Jane said nothing, however, just looked from one of them to the other, confusion fading and her face simply blank. Without a word, Patterson slid down the wall to sit on Jane's left, and Zapata took a seat against the wall on her right, settling themselves close to their friend. All three of them stared at the table ahead of them and the wall beyond it, and no one spoke for a few minutes.

While Jane still wasn't going to tell these two anything, it wasn't because she didn't want to. The fact that they'd been sitting by her every single day, despite having no proof whatsoever that she wasn't a traitor, and had tried so hard to help her when she didn't even want to help herself left her stunned. There were no words for how she felt about her two friends, or how lost she would have been without them – especially right now. She wanted to tell them just that, but somehow she couldn't speak, even now that she wanted to. The lump in her throat wouldn't allow it.

"We told him, Jane," Zapata said quietly, fidgeting with her hands in front of her.

"I yelled at him," Patterson added, chuckling softly at her earlier behavior. Jane turned and looked at her in surprise. "I couldn't help it," she said sheepishly. "He was being stupid."

"He was being Weller," Zapata added, as Jane turned to look at her next. "He's got his head all twisted up right now. I think he'll come down here… he just needs time to sort things out for himself." After a pause, she added, "But Patterson and I made a damn good case on your behalf. Good cop, bad cop, too." Zapata's eyes sparkled as the other two turned to look at her. "Wanna guess who was who?"

Before Jane could say anything, Patterson blurted out, "Oh my gosh! Was I the bad cop?" She looked embarrassed, and yet… proud at the same time.

"Sorry you missed my inspirational speech, both of you," Zapata smiled at them, then said, for Jane's benefit, "Patterson got a little agitated and ran out of the room before she could hear my good cop routine." Then, to both of them, she added, "I make an excellent 'good cop,' if I do say so myself."

Jane smiled a tiny bit at her friends' attempts at levity, but looked straight ahead, knowing that her thoughts showed clearly on her face, despite her best intentions. She felt tears dangerously close to forming just then. The thought that Kurt might never come and let her explain was simply unbearable. If he listened to her and didn't forgive her, well, that was one thing. But if she never even got to tell her side of the story? It was a thought that made her feel desperate with panic. He has to give me a chance to explain.

As if reading her mind, Zapata whispered, "It's gonna be okay, Jane."

"I don't deserve you guys," Jane replied in the same whisper, tears now gathering in her eyes as she shook her head quickly.

"That's where you're wrong," Patterson replied, having regained her composure. "But it doesn't matter, because you've got us anyway."

They all chuckled quietly and then fell silent. No other words were necessary.

KURT

He was pacing the office that he still thought of as Mayfair's, constantly having to correct himself and remember that it was now his office, ever since being given the promotion that he hadn't been allowed to refuse. Walking usually helped him think, but right now all it was making him do was to wonder if he was going to wear a hole in the carpet from all the pacing he was doing.

Thinking straight was impossible. Each time he tried to sort out his thoughts, he ended up with a jumble of emotions and a bad headache. Surely, there must be a way to figure this out. After all, he'd solved far more complex cases… and yet, try as he might to integrate his team's arguments into his consciousness, his mind resisted them.

"No Weller, you said she was Taylor! And I said she was Taylor, thanks to a DNA test that was clearly tampered with. You wanted her to be Taylor. You convinced her she was Taylor. And she lo—" She what? He wondered if his guess about she'd wanted to say was right.

"You made her want to be Taylor. For you. The least you could do is not hold that against her…" This one was hard to swallow, and his mind resisted it stubbornly. She said she remembered being Taylor, he insisted to himself. "You – we – helped her become Taylor. She may be in the wrong, but we are, too. Not intentionally, but that doesn't change anything." He swallowed hard and pushed the thought away.

"You don't know how lucky you are to have this chance… I'd give anything to have the chance to fix my mistakes." Hearing Patterson say this again and again in his head made him angry. I'm not the one who needs to fix my mistakes! he wanted to scream.

No, it isn't you. It's her, the voice in his head replied. And she's trying. So stop being so goddamn stubborn and talk to her.

"I know that you feel betrayed. I don't claim to know what happened with Jane. It's pretty clear that she did something wrong, or I don't think she would've stayed silent for the past five days. But whatever it is she wants to tell you, don't you think you can forget for a second how you feel like she wronged you and just listen to her?" Could he? He honestly wasn't sure.

"I know that eventually, if you don't talk to her you'll hate yourself. Even if you don't think so, I know you will." He tried to look at himself as an outsider, the way the rest of the team saw him. Despite the fact that he fought hard for others, he was always hard on himself. That much was obvious from the twenty-five years that he'd spent punishing himself for the loss of his best friend.

If I miss my chance, and I never get another one, would I be okay with that? He just couldn't be sure. After all, never was a very long time. He was still too emotional to make a logical decision at that moment, he decided – just thinking the name 'Taylor Shaw' was enough to stop him from thinking clearly.

"We can play 'Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda' all day. But you want answers – no, you need answers. Did she lie to you, to us? It does look that way, yeah – about something, maybe a bunch of stuff... But do you really think it was all a lie?" Did he really think that, or was that his wounded pride and anger talking?Was it really that much easier to believe that if she'd lied about everything than to believe that she'd lied about one thing? Wasn't it even possible that some of it had been the truth?

"The odds that all of it was a lie? I just don't know. I think she's mixed up in something, whether by choice or not, and the simplest way to find out about that something is to listen to her."

You don't even have to say anything if you don't want to! he reminded himself. If she wants to talk that badly, maybe you should let her talk… But he was still so very angry…

"There'll be truth in there, somewhere, even if she does lie again. And you'll find the truth one way or the other. It's what makes you so damn good at your job." Would he be able to tell if she lied to him again? Or would he just be sucked back in by whatever lie she told next, because he wanted to believe her? Did he want to believe her? Why were his instincts so finely tuned in every part of his job, except when it came to Jane?

You know why, stupid.

He ignored that particular voice in his head. That thought was too dangerous, and he wouldn't let himself even think it. He couldn't afford to let himself go there. The fall was too far.

Back and forth he walked across his office, again and again. Some of the time when he walked away from his door, he started to think that maybe he should go down and see Jane and let her say whatever it was she wanted to say. This urge lasted all of two or three seconds, and invariably every time he turned back towards the door to walk the length of his office in the other direction, he'd changed his mind. Sometimes the urge to go and see her came every few minutes, sometimes it didn't come again for an hour or more.

Reade walked by Kurt's doorway a few hours later, pausing when he saw him still pacing back and forth. "Hey," Reade said, leaning against the doorframe, "have you been pacing your office all afternoon?" He'd seen him doing it earlier, as well.

Kurt stopped, ran his hand through his hair and then rubbed it across his face. Damn, but he was tired. "I don't even know. Just trying to… make sense of things."

Reade nodded sympathetically. "You seen Zapata or Patterson?" he asked curiously.

Kurt gritted his teeth and shook his head. "Not since I nearly had my head taken off earlier," he replied. "Why?"

"Just wondering. I'm sure they're around here somewhere."

"Yeah, plotting my demise," Kurt sighed, forcing himself to smile despite the stress he was under. It had been a joke, though come to think of it… where were those two, anyway?

Checking his watch, Kurt realized that it had, indeed, been hours since he'd been pacing the floor in his office. Feeling like a coward but unable to deal with seeing Jane, at least just then, he started gathering his things. He needed to get out of the office, and it was nearly six o'clock. He wasn't going to get anything else accomplished that day. What he desperately needed was sleep.

"You takin' off?" Reade asked, checking his watch. None of them had left this early in quite a while, and he was contemplating doing the same thing. Eating dinner at actual dinner time was a novelty he didn't get to enjoy too often.

"Yeah, I think so," Weller said tiredly. "I'm beat."

Reade just nodded, but remained in his doorway. Hesitantly, he asked, "Did you…" but stopped when Kurt looked up at him.

Weller shook his head quickly. "Nah. I… Not yet."

Reade nodded. It wasn't up to him to tell Weller what to do. For whatever reason, he did want him to talk to Jane, possibly just because he was burning with curiosity to see what she had to say by way of explanation, and how far-fetched it would sound. He couldn't begin to guess whether it was better for him to talk to her or not.

"Alright, I'll see you tomorrow, man," Reade said, turning and heading for the locker room. Weller nodded back at him as Reade disappeared around the corner, as Kurt picked up his jacket and headed for the parking garage.

Maybe tomorrow, he told himself. I'm not ready today.

JANE, PATTERSON AND ZAPATA

The three women sat on the floor beside each other for what could have been hours. At one point Patterson started to feel sleepy. It had been an emotional day, after all, and she was exhausted. She felt her eyes closing and yet, she had no desire to leave. Never mind that she and Zapata were supposed to be working. Jane needed them. She'd like to see Weller give her a hard time about that right now.

Jane felt something on her shoulder and she looked over at Patterson, who was in the process of falling asleep on her left shoulder. Patterson was adorable just then, Jane couldn't help but think. Knowing that sooner than later, she'd be alone and back in her cell, she didn't mind at all. Zapata glanced over to see what Jane was looking at, and she smiled too. It would be a shame to disturb her when they had to go.

Just then, the door clicked open loudly and two men in dark uniforms, ear pieces in their ears, stepped into the room. By this point, Jane was familiar with them, and she knew from her presence that it was time to go back to her cell. She sighed and shook Patterson, who still hadn't woken up despite the noise. Zapata helped a sleepy Patterson to her feet while Jane stood and nodded at the two men.

Before she approached them, however, she turned back to her friends. "Thank you both so much," she said gratefully. Still, from her expression Zapata could tell that she was disappointed not to have seen Weller yet.

"Give him time, Jane," she told her. "I know, it's easy for me to say when you're in here, but you know Weller, he's stubborn. Like you. Just one of many things you have in common."

Jane couldn't help but smile, knowing it was the truth, even though the waiting was maddeningly frustrating.

"We'll see you tomorrow," Patterson promised, and Jane just nodded, her smile disappearing as she turned to go with the guards, her head down.

Patterson and Zapata stood and watched her go, once again sad for their friend and frustrated with Weller for not having made an appearance yet. There was nothing else to do but make their way back to the locker room to collect their own things, since it had gotten late quickly while they'd sat with Jane. No doubt Weller and Reade were already gone for the day.

A few minutes later, as they stood at their respective lockers and gathered their things to leave, Patterson paused and looked seriously at Zapata. "Do you really think Weller will give her a chance to explain?"

Zapata's expression changed and she looked worried, though she tried to look like she was considering the question. "I don't know. I mean, I like to think so…" She was worried about the same thing, but she didn't want to admit it out loud. "And he has to know that the longer he doesn't talk to her, the more he's going to have to deal with us…" Patterson smiled slightly at Zapata's joke. It was the truth that they would give him a hard time if he stayed away from Jane, but in the end, they couldn't force him to listen to her. Ultimately, it would be up to him.

"Maybe tomorrow," Patterson said hopefully, though it wasn't clear whether it was more directed at Zapata or to reassuring herself.

"Yeah, maybe tomorrow," Zapata echoed as she followed her friend out of the locker room.

They could only hope.