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

KURT

It was Friday, and it had been a long damn week. The rest of the team had cornered Kurt in his office and made their feelings known on Tuesday, and the days since then had dragged by even more slowly than the previous five, when he'd just been angry – with Jane, and with the world in general. He felt perfectly justified in being angry after everything he'd been through. Maybe she wasn't responsible for all of it, but she was responsible for enough of it that he couldn't help channeling his anger towards her.

Since Tuesday, however, the situation had gotten even worse, at least as far as he was concerned, because he was still angry, but now he was conflicted on top of it. He had known that he was angry at Jane, but he had only just figured out that he was also angry at himself for being angry at her, and for not going down to talk to her. He was even angry and frustrated that he was angry at himself, because goddammit did he have the right to be angry at her after what she'd done? It seemed that he was caught in a spiral that he simply couldn't break out of.

So if he wanted to do something about the whole stupid mess, instead of just continuing to stew about it, then what was stopping him from hearing Jane out? Stubbornness? Maybe. Or hurt. Or betrayal. Or… fear?

But why would I be afraid? he wondered. That didn't make any sense, because he certainly wasn't afraid of her – as tough as she was.

Of course, the voice in his head could clear that right up for him. Not afraid of her, stupid. You're afraid because you are, and always have been, each other's weak point. Each other's blind spot. The one exception to all of your other rules that you've made throughout your life to protect yourself. They never applied to her. No matter how high you build the walls around yourself, somehow she opens a door through them that you never knew was there. So now you want to tell yourself it was all a lie – it's easier that way. But you're afraid that it wasn't all a lie after all. Because if some of it's true and some of it's a lie… that's messy, and you don't like messy. And then you have to figure out which is which. And you'd have to admit to yourself that you do care about her.

For example, let's say for the sake of argument she lied on purpose about being Taylor (he silenced Patterson and Zapata's voices of protest in his head that immediately started shrieking, telling the two women who weren't even physically there that it was just an example). So if she was lying about being Taylor then it becomes harder to believe anything else she said, or to believe that her feelings for him were real… what then? Or, if she didn't lie about thinking she was Taylor – if she really believed it – but instead she had been sent to him for some other reason by who knows who, and she lied about her feelings for him because it furthered her mission… was that better, or was it worse? Not that she had articulated them, exactly, but her eyes, like his, had said plenty on many occasions.

There were too many possible scenarios that ended up pretty much the same. There were too many things that she could have done that he was almost certain that he couldn't forgive. Or that made it hard enough to trust her again, that he wouldn't be able to believe anything she said no matter what.

So back to his original question: What am I afraid of? He'd finally realized, after 4 days of stewing, that he was just as afraid that everything hadn't been a lie as he was that it had, because how in the world would he be able to know for sure? How would he know the right thing to do with all this? Despite everyone's apparent confidence in him to figure out the truth, he himself didn't have that confidence in his own ability to see through her lies, he now realized.

This, of course, brought him full circle back to anger, because he didn't want to be afraid. In all of the many cases over the years in which he'd had a gun pointed at him or his life had been otherwise threatened, he wouldn't say that he'd been afraid. He hadn't enjoyed it, obviously, but in each of those cases, he felt a certain sense of control, as crazy as it sounded, because for better or worse, he knew the protocol of the situation. It didn't always work as planned, of course, but he knew what he was supposed to do, and he knew how to improvise, thanks to his training. But this? What the hell was he supposed to do in this situation?

There'd been a lot of time spent pacing the floor of his office this week, and he'd gotten more than his share of silent, menacing glares from Zapata and Patterson because he had avoided talking to Jane. He'd known that they would react that way, but he had accepted it as inevitable. He'd ducked as many of their looks as he could, feeling guilty every time. They were right to give him a hard time, he knew, and yet… he just couldn't bring himself to march down there and be in the same room with Jane and just get it over with. Hell, he could still barely convince himself to think her name or allow himself to picture her face without feeling himself tense all over. No, he was still just too angry.

He'd gotten close, once, a few days ago. The rest of his team had headed down to the workroom where they were trying to assemble the details of the case without Mr. Nice Guy's prying eyes on them, so he knew they'd be occupied for at least a little while – he hadn't wanted to be discovered going to or from interrogation, in case he lost his nerve. He'd managed to get himself all the way down there, where he'd leaned against the wall with the doors to rooms 1 and 2 and their adjacent monitoring rooms to his right, and waited… waited to be ready, then forced himself to move closer.

He'd managed to get himself close enough to the room Jane was in to see her there, sitting on the floor pushed up against the wall, hugging her knees to her chest. After that first day she'd been arrested, they'd put her in room 2 at his insistence, though he didn't know whether it was for her benefit, or his, or both. It was stupid, he knew, because the rooms were nearly identical… but there had been something about seeing her in the same room that he'd seen her in the first day they'd met… it was simply too much.

There, outside the interrogation room door, was when he'd frozen in place – panicked – and had turned away, suddenly unable to be there any longer. I'm not ready, he'd thought as he'd walked quickly back to his office and paced for hours, like he had nearly every day that week. He hadn't said a word about it to anyone. The only people who would have known about his failed attempt would be the agents monitoring the security cameras, if anyone had been watching at the time.

That had been several days ago, and ever since then, he'd been simultaneously beating himself up for running away and defending his decision to do so – though only to himself. He kept repeating to himself that he wasn't ready to talk to her, to the point where it had almost become a mantra. It was exhausting. And yet, he kept doing it.

JANE

It was Friday – not that it mattered. Every day of the week was the same to her. Every day she woke up in a tiny, dark cell, was given a tray of food from which she barely ate anything, having long since lost her appetite, and then sat pushed into the corner, attempting to make herself disappear from existence, until the guards came to take her to the interrogation room. There, they would lock her in and she would sit in the same spot on the floor as the day before, knees pulled up to her chest and her arms around them tightly, her head down, until the Bureau's interrogators came in to ask the same questions they asked her every single day. And each day, just like the day before, she kept her head down and said nothing.

Every day, after they'd asked her the same five hundred or so variations of the same ten questions, with increasing hostility and frustration as the days wore on, and had spoken to her sternly about cooperating, they would give up in frustration and leave her there. Finally, she was alone in the silence once more. Of course, as soon as the silence descended around her it became not a relief but a prison all its own, pounding in her ears and threatening to crush her with its weight.

Only in this crushing silence would she finally raise her head and sigh, wondering how long she could do this, how many more times she would have to endure it. How many times she could endure it before she lost her mind. Or did it even matter? Did any of it matter? What was the point, if she was never going to get a chance to explain? And even if she did, the things that she'd done… there would be no coming back from it.

So maybe it didn't matter that Kurt wasn't going to talk to her after all, despite her offer to talk only to him. She'd been hoping against hope anyway, she realized sadly, trying to exercise the tiniest bit of control over a situation that had long since spiraled completely and totally out of her control. Who had she been kidding to think that he'd even give her a chance? She realized all over again that she didn't deserve another chance, and she suddenly felt as though the air was being squeezed from her lungs.

The guards set another tray of food on the table in the interrogation room at some point, but she didn't even hear them come in or go out, despite the fact that the door didn't open quietly. She supposed maybe she'd fallen asleep with her head down on her knees. Or maybe she just didn't care enough about what was happening around her to even listen anymore. In the end, like all the rest of it, it didn't matter.

JANE, ZAPATA AND PATTERSON

Midway through the afternoon, Zapata and Patterson stopped by to see her, as they did every day, finding her in the same spot on the floor as always. Their arrival was the only small ray of hope she had left. Each time one or both of them arrived, it surprised her. She was so despondent that she would not have been surprised if one day even they stopped coming by and just went back to their lives. It wasn't that she didn't think they were loyal friends, it was just that she felt completely more undeserving of their support than ever. Someone who had done the terrible things that she'd done didn't deserve loyal friends, no matter how much she wanted to cling to them and never let go.

They looked down at her questioningly, not needing any words to ask the one thing on their minds, but Jane simply shook her head sadly, looking down at the floor. As they'd done each time they'd come to see her together, which had happened a few times that week, they sat down without a word, one on each side of her – as if by doing so, they could protect her from an unseen enemy.

After they'd sat there quietly for quite a while, Patterson suddenly leaned forward and looked past Jane at Zapata. That look was in her eyes again… the one that had been there when she'd yelled at Kurt a few days before. That had been the last time she'd spoken to him, in fact. "Zapata, we need to do something," she said quietly. After sitting in the quiet for so long, it felt wrong to talk any louder than necessary, even as upset as she was. Jane looked from Patterson to Zapata in surprise, seeing Zapata nod in agreement.

"You're right," the brunette agreed. "I'm done waiting on Weller." They stared at each other for a few seconds, as if passing some message back and forth telepathically, before Zapata spoke again.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Patterson?" The blonde nodded as her mouth curled into a small, mischievous smile.

"Good. Let's do it!" Zapata replied, suddenly looking much more animated that Jane had seen her all week.

The two stood up suddenly, leaving Jane sitting on the floor and despite the unexpected energy in the air, feeling even more powerless than usual. She hated that she needed her friends to fight her battles for her. At the same time, she felt a rush of gratitude for these two women whose friendship she knew that she didn't deserve. She smiled at them weakly, but didn't say a word. She wanted to know what they were up to, but much more than that, she desperately wanted to be part of it. Since she couldn't, she just sat sadly and watched them, curious about what they would tell her.

"We'll be back soon," Zapata promised. "And this time, Weller's coming with us. Whether he likes it or not."

I hope so, Jane thought, though even as she did, she feared that it would all be for nothing. As much as she hated this limbo she'd been in for the past nine days, she was also afraid of what would happen when he finally showed up. There were still ways that it could get worse, after all.

The door clicked behind them, and Jane put her head back down onto her knees, wishing with everything inside her that she could just disappear, and stop being such a problem for everyone around her.

KURT

It was late on Friday afternoon and he was actually sitting at his desk, for once, pouring over what little evidence they had – photos, mostly – from the scene where Mayfair had been found. There were still very large holes in what they knew, and it was making it pretty much impossible to get anywhere. He knew they needed more intel, and, well, he knew what he needed to do, he just hadn't been able to bring himself to do it.

Besides, he'd rationalized to himself, they had no reason to believe that Mayfair's death was related to Jane. As angry as he was with her, he couldn't even begin to fathom the possibility. Either way, it was probably naïve, even stupid, to think that Jane could give them useful intel. How could they believe that anything she would tell them would be the truth, after all? Still, it would be somewhere to start, which would put them farther ahead of where they were so far – which was nowhere.

KURT, ZAPATA AND PATTERSON

A loud knock disturbed the silence of his office and he looked up, startled, to see a stern looking Zapata in his doorway, and an equally stern looking Patterson standing just behind her in the hall.

"Enough is enough, Weller," Zapata said, her face showing none of the softness or understanding that she'd shown him the last time they'd talked. "Let's go." Even Patterson, whose default look was normally a smile, showed no trace of one. Kurt sighed heavily, rubbed his eyes and shook his head as the two women walked into his office and approached his desk. He knew they meant well, and he knew that it was time… and yet, there he still sat.

Can't they just leave me alone? he wondered, feeling more exhausted by just the idea of talking to Jane. I'll go first thing on Monday. I just need the weekend to get my head on straight… Of course, he only said this in his head. It didn't matter, though, because Zapata and Patterson were not in the mood to be argued with. Monday was not an option. It was going to be now.

"I'm serious, Weller. Right now." The look in Zapata's eyes left no doubt that she meant it. Of course, technically Kurt was her boss, and not the other way around. However, this was different. She couldn't have him fired for not doing what she said, but she knew him well enough to know that in this particular case he was being extra stubborn, and that marching into his office and ordering him to listen to her was what it was going to take to get him to do the right thing. She knew that he knew very well that he should have talked to Jane by now – and that he knew that he had to do it because it was simply the right thing to do. As many issues as he might have, Kurt Weller was a guy who could not help but do the right thing. This time he just needed some help.

"Zapata, I just need—" he started.

But Zapata was having none of it. "You've had plenty of time to think. And you and I both know that you've been thinking too much," Zapata replied, a feeling of satisfaction filling her when she saw the look of surprise on her boss' face. He's too easy to read sometimes, she thought. "Now it's time to act, not think."

"This isn't just about you, you know," Patterson added from beside Zapata. She'd been so quiet, Kurt had almost forgotten that she was there. It was the first he'd seen of her since she'd yelled at him and stormed out of his office on Tuesday, and he was pretty sure she'd been avoiding him on purpose since then. In the four days since, he'd only seen the back of her, except for the occasional angry glare, of course, as she hurried on her way here or there. Her tone turned bitter as she added, "You're not the only one who's hurting… and yet, you're the one who gets to have all the power." When he didn't answer, she added, "And you get to go home and sleep in your own bed at night."

Patterson watched with a deep feeling of satisfaction as her words sunk in. She could almost pinpoint the exact moment when Weller's predominant feeling moved from anger to guilt. That had been her goal – to make him understand exactly what he was doing to Jane. No matter how angry he was with her, Patterson had trouble believing that he actually wanted to torture the woman he had so clearly been in love with only a few weeks ago. Though of course, she had to admit that still none of them knew exactly what Jane had done, and that it was not impossible that what she might have to say might make a difference to how they felt about her. However, Patterson steadfastly refused to believe that Jane could have done anything that would make her unworthy of their forgiveness, and she would simply not be convinced otherwise.

Of course, Kurt knew that Patterson had been hinting blatantly to the fact that Jane was shuffled back and forth from a cell to a detention room and back again, day in and day out, having to wait until he decided that he would let her talk to him. That she slept on a hard mattress in a small cell night after night. He knew that. He knew that she would probably stay locked up like that indefinitely if she continued to refuse to talk to anyone else and if he continued to refuse to see her. He also knew that somewhere along the way, she had chosen to do things that had led her to be locked up here.

But knowing what he knew about what was happening to Jane, the question that he couldn't help but ask himself was… Am I really that cruel? He'd never thought so before, but now his behavior spoke otherwise.

She could talk to the interrogators or Borden any time she wanted to, he told himself to try to rationalize his own behavior. All those other people have done nothing but try every damn day to get her to talk, he thought stubbornly. She's doing this to herself.

That's a cop-out answer, and you know it, the voice in his head replied. Technically he was right, of course, she could talk to anyone if she decided to, but that didn't change the fact that to some degree, he was getting some kind of sick satisfaction from punishing her himself.

He looked back at the two women standing in front of him, now feeling defensive. Jane, Patterson and Zapata had long ago formed a strong bond, the likes of which Kurt had never seen before. He had been glad, at the time, since Jane had so many odds stacked against her. She had needed people in her corner. Now, however, these women's loyalty to Jane was slightly less endearing. Still, he wondered whether what Patterson said was true. As much as he'd been feeling like it, this wasn't only about him – or was it?

It all came back once again to whether or not Jane had lied, and how much, and about what, and… before he knew it, his hands were tightened into fists and his jaw was clenched yet again, as seemed to be an everyday occurrence these days, to his dismay. This has to stop.

There's only one way to make it stop, and you know what that is, the voice in his head reminded him. So Kurt Weller… make it stop.

He wanted to strangle the rational voice in his head. He wanted to tell everyone to go to hell, including – or perhaps especially – Patterson and Zapata. He wanted to just wake up and realize that this had all been a terrible nightmare and that it was over.

And when you wake up from this nightmare, do you want Jane to be there, or for her to be gone for good, as if she'd never been here at all? the voice – who of course, he couldn't get rid of, since it was inside his head – asked calmly.

He closed his eyes and sighed heavily as his head dropped toward his chest. It wasn't clear to Zapata or Patterson what was going on with him, but something definitely was. It was as if he was fighting a war within himself.

Poor Weller, Zapata thought. This is so hard on both of them.

As they continued to watch him, Kurt pushed his chair back and with great effort, lifted himself to his feet. Looking at Zapata and Patterson and already feeling exhausted, he simply nodded. "Fine," he said. It was almost as if he'd given up.

"Come on, Weller," Zapata told him in a voice that was suddenly devoid of its hard edge from a minute before, "let's go." Patterson said nothing else, didn't smile even a little bit, as Zapata did, just simply walked on the other side of him silently. He had a feeling that while Zapata seemed to understand the turmoil inside him and not hold it against him, at least not too much, Patterson had taken his behavior almost as personally as if he'd done the things he'd done not only to Jane, but to her as well.

Women really don't make sense, sometimes, he thought fleetingly as he walked between the two.

He was pretty sure that he was going to have to make all this up to Patterson, no matter how things went with Jane… but that would have to wait for another time.

They started down the hall towards the interrogation rooms, the route that Zapata and Patterson could now walk in their sleep, each of them anxious about what was about to happen.

THE TEAM

Zapata and Patterson stopped behind Kurt as he approached the door to the interrogation room, watching him slowly unlock the door and even more slowly, walk inside. Glancing at each other without a word, they moved as quickly as they could to get to the adjacent room from which they could monitor what happened inside. There was no expectation that this would not be a private conversation – it really wasn't possible when you were in FBI custody. Besides, whatever she was going to say was going to be relevant to at least one, if not two cases.

When the two women entered the darkened room with the monitors, they were surprised to find Reade already there. Patterson's eyes went immediately to the screens, while Zapata looked at her partner curiously, arching her eyebrows in surprise.

"What? You think I'd miss this?" he asked. "Thanks for inviting me to the party, by the way," he added, pretending to be offended that she and Patterson hadn't let him know what was going on.

She ignored his mock indignation, knowing better than to think he was bothered. "Apparently that wasn't necessary," Zapata replied distractedly, sitting down. They both turned to watch the monitors to see what would happen.

Back in the other room, Kurt walked slowly to the table, his heavy footsteps echoing through the silent room. Equally slowly, he pulled out a chair, which scraped loudly against the floor and then creaked as he sat down on it. He sat there and looked at her on the floor across the room, saying nothing. She hadn't moved.

Jane knew who had entered the room without lifting her head. Every one of her muscles was tense, even ones she hadn't known could be tense. Even if Patterson and Zapata hadn't told her that they were going to bring him down to see her, she would have known that it was him. She could smell the tiniest hint of his cologne, she recognized his footsteps, slow and tired though they had been... but besides those things, she just… knew. That part of it she couldn't explain.

She remained on the floor with her head down, frozen in place. She'd desperately wanted him to come and see her, and now that he had, she was terrified. She wasn't afraid of him of course, despite the fact that his strength was greater than hers. They'd always been evenly matched sparring partners, because while he was stronger, her technique was better, faster.

No, she wasn't physically afraid of him, it was more that everything – everything – that was important to her depended on this moment, on her ability to make him understand. And by everything that was important to her, she meant… THEM. The two of them. Jane and Kurt. She could simply not conceive of her life without him. She didn't want to imagine it. Despite the flashes of her past life that she'd remembered, even her apparent engagement to Oscar, there was nothing else that truly mattered to her besides Kurt. Those other memories, they had happened to someone else. Whoever she'd been, it wasn't her. She had that woman's memories, but she wasn't that woman. She was haunted by that woman and the choices she had made, which had come to dictate her reality, but she wasn't that woman.

And so now, knowing the stakes, she found that her muscles refused to respond to her brain's commands. His importance to her was so great, she'd done the one thing that she would have sworn that she would never have done – she had betrayed her team. She'd betrayed him – because it had been the only way to keep him alive… at least, that had been what she'd been told, and she hadn't been willing to take the chance.

It had been worth it, of course, because she could never have lived with herself if something had happened to Kurt that she could have prevented, but the price had been tremendous. In order to save him, she'd had to lose him anyway.

She knew that the chances of being forgiven were slim to none, and she felt as though her chances of forgiving herself were possibly even less… but her only chance to try was now staring her in the face. Or, it would be as soon as she lifted her head.

He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting to see in her face, not having looked at her since the night he'd arrested her. He wasn't sure how long he was prepared to sit and wait for her to do something, to say something, before he stood up and walked out – though he was fairly sure that Zapata and Patterson would bar the door and keep him in that room by force, if necessary, until Jane had had a chance to talk. So he sat and continued to look at her, noticing that she was sitting absolutely, perfectly still, except for the sound of her breathing, which was faster than usual. The tension in the air between the two of them was palpable, even without eye contact between them.

Look at him, she ordered herself. Look at him.

She couldn't do it, though she knew that she had to. LOOK AT HIM. The words rang in her head like thunder, so loudly that she wondered if he could hear the as well. He's finally in the room with you, after more than a week of refusing to be here, so you'd better look at him right now. Stop being a goddamn coward and open your eyes. Looking at him is the easy part, after all. After that, you have to talk.

Swallowing hard, she knew that the voice in her head, while slightly abusive, was right. This was the easy part. And so she took a deep breath, clenched her fists tightly against the storm of emotions she felt, and reminded herself that just like what she had already done, what she had to do next was worth it. No matter what the cost to herself, he deserved to know the truth. And if she didn't do what she knew to be right, then she was no better than any of the shadowy figures who'd emerged from her past and killed so many people to achieve their goals.

Their goals may have been noble as well, the voice in her head piped up, but she pushed it aside. This was not the time to make excuses for the people who had ruined everything for her.

He was beginning to wonder how long he would have to wait before she would acknowledge his presence, which was something he hadn't been expecting. The way Patterson and Zapata had framed the argument, he'd expected her to start talking the moment he walked in. Just then, however, he sensed a change in her. Her breathing changed, and she slowly lifted her head. For a second, he held his breath, not sure what to expect, and even his anger was momentarily forgotten, so great was his curiosity about what was about to happen.

Exhaling slowly, suddenly feeling as though she was watching herself from outside of her own body, she forced her head up and finally blinked her eyes open. She found herself staring directly into his eyes, and for a moment, it was almost as though a jolt of electric current shot between them.

Almost as if it happened in slow motion, he watched her open her eyes and was surprised at the intensity of the look staring back at him. He had managed to make himself forget the force of the emotion that was often held between them by their eyes alone. As had happened so many times before, he couldn't look away.

He was still sitting at the table, several feet away from her, and yet, to her surprise, she felt herself pushed, hard, up against the wall behind her by a force she couldn't see. Their eyes were locked on each other, but though she desperately wanted to, she couldn't read him. There was simply too much happening behind his eyes, like a dark storm cloud that revealed only that bad weather was imminent, but not exactly what kind.

They sat that way for several minutes, just starting at each other. In the other room, Reade, Zapata and Patterson stared at the monitors, not even realizing they were holding their breath, waiting for what came next.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Kurt broke the silence. "Jane…" he started, unsurely. "Come and sit at the table." His voice had come out more harshly than he'd intended, which he immediately regretted. He watched her face change then, and at first he was confused by her expression as she stared back at him. Then he realized what it was – she was afraid… afraid to come near him. He was wary of her as well, but he held up his hands to show that he meant her no harm and did his best to make his expression more neutral. He was still angry, but it was now so much more complicated than it had been the last time they'd been in the same room. After all, when he looked in her eyes, it was always more complicated.

Without a word, she stood up slowly and walked toward the table.

A/N: And now I have to figure out what Jane's actually going to tell Kurt… which is pretty daunting for me, because she doesn't just have one or two secrets… Looks like I have my work cut out for me, and lots of "research" (as in… rewatching). What can I say, life is hard! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I promise, they'll actually talk to each other in the next chapter!