Disclaimer: I do not own Jane or Kurt or Blindspot. Writing about them is simply the outlet for my obsession.
"Okay… what next?" he asked her gently. She took a deep breath, watching his fingers trace circles on her palms.
I can do this, she told herself. I have to.
She could feel the anxiety rising again. What next? Good question. Pick something horrible that has happened to you in the past few months. There's a lot to choose from.
He watched her expression carefully. She already looked like she was about to break down. Talking about Mayfair had drained her, that much was obvious. No matter how many things there were that she still wanted to confess, it wasn't as though there was a certain time by which they needed to be finished. He'd be there as long as he needed to, after all. "Do you need a break?" he asked her. "Five minutes to breathe?"
As much as she wanted all of it behind her, it felt like there was still a lot left, and she didn't think she had the stamina to keep pushing herself indefinitely.
"Yeah," she agreed gratefully. She removed her hands from his reluctantly, standing up and stretching, then walked back towards the bathroom. More than anything, she had the urge to scrub her hands, though she knew that it was just psychological, and that it was because she couldn't stop imagining Mayfair's blood on them.
Closing the door behind her, she breathed a sigh of relief. This tiny room was the only place she'd been in the past week and a half where her every move wasn't being monitored, recorded and scrutinized. She understood why it had to be that way – after all, the things that she had done… she had earned this treatment. Still, it didn't make it easy to deal with. Turning on the water as hot as she could stand it, she washed her hands again and again, until her skin was pink and stung from the heat of the water. Next, she let the water run until it was freezing cold, then she leaned forward and splashed her face. It wouldn't erase all the tears that had fallen, nor prevent the ones that were still to come, but at least for a few minutes she could feel slightly more human in between her breakdowns.
Patting her hands and face dry with paper towels, she re-emerged from the bathroom, feeling her stress level rise the moment she stepped back out into the light of the interrogation room. Kurt was standing by the table, draining what was left of his coffee, and she walked slowly in his direction, but stopped a few feet away, behind the chair in which she'd been sitting, so that it sat between them. She reached across the table for her coffee, not having any particular desire to drink it, since her stomach was in knots, but needing something to do – with her hands and with herself.
Taking a drink and attempting not to gag from the sick feeling that was growing stronger and stronger in her stomach, she began walking in the other direction, simply pacing the length of the room. She wanted nothing more than to walk towards him – she knew that he was the one who could calm her down. But at the same time, despite how he had acted since he'd requested to be locked in her cell with her the night before, she still feared that he would, at some point, change his mind, that he would find somewhere in all of this mess something that crossed the line, something that he really couldn't forgive, and decide that he took back the compassion he had shown her. She knew this fear didn't make much sense, and that he'd given her absolutely no reason to feel this way, but she couldn't help it. As far as she as concerned, that was what she deserved. No matter how many times he tried to insist to her that this wasn't the case, she tried to keep herself ready for rejection at any second. After all, it would hurt less if she was expecting it.
His cup empty, Kurt threw it in the trash can in the corner and then walked toward Jane, who appeared to be pacing. Instead of allowing herself a moment to relax, she seemed to be doing the exact opposite, and making her stress even worse. When she saw him coming in her direction, her eyes widened slightly and she almost looked like she was looking for an escape. He stopped a few feet from her – farther away than he wanted to be – and held out his hand, his palm facing her.
"Jane, stop," he told her quietly, and she did. She stood still and watched him, suddenly looking terrified, as he took another step toward her, moving as if he was trapped in slow motion… or maybe that was just the way her brain was perceiving it. Before she knew what was happening, his arms had wound around her and he was hugging her firmly. She had thought that something as simple as a hug would make her feel trapped just then, but instead that hug from him made the ice inside her veins seem to melt, and she relaxed against him, bringing her arms up to his back without thinking. Her head rested against his shoulder, and she breathed out raggedly.
"It's going to be okay," he told her, leaning forward to speak close to her ear. "I promise."
"You can't promise something like that," she told him sadly. He felt her try to pull away from him, but he didn't let her.
"Yes, I can," he insisted, still holding onto her. He felt her sigh in resignation and then lean against him again, tossing her now empty coffee cup towards the trash can a few feet away.
"Okay?" he asked softly. She simply nodded, still not allowing herself to believe it, but unable to have an argument with him about whether or not things would be okay when she was already so exhausted from everything else. Releasing his left arm from around her, he turned so that he was facing the same direction as she as, securing his right arm across her shoulders, and began walking them back towards the chairs. While she knew that this had been inevitable, as it was only supposed to be a short break, she felt herself tensing before she'd even sat down. Of course, Kurt could sense the shift in her anxiety level, both because he was so close to her, and also because he was so tuned in to her emotions.
Before she could sit down, he turned her chair to face his. Whether or not she chose to look at him, he hoped that doing so would give more of a semblance of it being the two of them, and less of this being something for the benefit of the rest of the team, and indeed, the rest of the FBI. Standing beside the chairs, he pulled her close again, holding on for only a few seconds before releasing her.
It was at that moment that they heard the door click loudly, and they looked up to see Reade, who was walking toward them carrying what appeared to be an impressive number of coffee cups and water bottles, balancing them both in his hands and between his arms and his body. Stopping beside the table, he carefully set down the ones he'd didn't have a grip on, before setting down two coffees and two bottles of water.
"Thought you guys could maybe use a refill," he said awkwardly, glancing from one of them to the other, then began picking up the rest of what he'd had in his arms, ready to take it with him back to the monitoring room.
"Thanks, Reade," Kurt replied gratefully, nodding at him.
Jane attempted to smile at him, though her expression ended up looking more pained than anything. "Thanks," she whispered, settling herself in her chair once more, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, her fingers woven together and forearms up in the air with her forehead leaned against them, her eyes closed. Kurt sat down across from her, tugging her hands towards him, forcing her to sit back up since she no longer had her hands to lean against. As she looked back up at him, he did his best to concentrate on projecting a look of calm, knowing that she would need it. He watched her intently as she took a deep breath, looking slightly less frazzled than she had when she'd finished talking about Mayfair. He supposed that for the time being, "slightly less frazzled" was the best he could hope for.
"I guess… next I'll tell you about what happened to Carter," she began slowly. While he wasn't necessarily the next most important to her, she knew that information about what had happened to him would be vitally important to the FBI – and the CIA as well – so he seemed like a logical choice. Not that the order really mattered, except to her, since it was all coming out this time.
So far she was still in control of her emotions, breathing almost normally, and that was a good thing – despite the fact that it probably wouldn't last. She gave herself a few more minutes, at most, until she expected to be breaking down again… but that really couldn't be something she took into consideration. Taking a deep breath, she thought back to that night… at least this part started with a happier memory. "Do you remember the night…?" Of course he does, silly, she reminded herself. "When you came home, and I was waiting outside your building?" This time she let her eyes meet his easily, and she saw surprise register there.
That night has something to do with Carter? he wondered, baffled as to where this was going. Then again, when he thought about it, that was the night when Carter had disappeared. Fisher, in his mad witch hunt, had pointed out that much. "Without your detail…" he said, continuing the thought.
"And I said that I… I 'wanted a moment that was just us,' she added, a slight smile appearing out of nowhere at the memory of kissing him, and then seeing the surprise on his face. It was as though they were taking turns continuing one thought now. She couldn't help but bask in the glow of this memory, because at least for the moment, it was a blissfully happy one – and she didn't have a lot of those.
"And you kissed me," he said, stating the obvious. She felt herself blushing, her smile now blossoming across her face – a real, genuine smile – it was one of the happiest memories she had, despite the fact that it had been followed so closely by the beginning of the implosion of her reality.
"One of the few things that I can remember about being Jane that I don't regret doing," she whispered, looking into his eyes steadily, for once not needing to feel guilty… only sad, because it had been so short lived, and had been followed by so many horrible things.
He nodded slowly, smiling at both her happiness and his own, feeling them seem to multiply each other. It was such a wonderful change to watch her remember something happy, and while he knew it wouldn't last, he tried to help her stretch this part out as long as possible. If anyone deserved a moment of happiness, of peace, it was Jane, especially because it obviously preceded something that would be traumatic.
"Of course I remember that night," he said softly, knowing that something that he didn't want to hear was probably coming in a matter of seconds. He'd been holding her clasped hands in one of his, loosely, and he looked down at them, putting one of his hands on each side of hers, holding them together, as if he could somehow hold that moment between his hands and stop it from escaping them.
"But," he added, "You have to give yourself more credit than that. You've done a lot of things since you've been Jane that you shouldn't regret." He looked at her sincerely, and she smiled in appreciation at what he'd just said, but he saw her smile change slightly. He could tell from her expression that even though he'd meant what he'd said – because she had done a lot of things that had helped them since she'd come to the FBI – she had so much guilt over the things she'd done wrong that it seemed to erase the good she'd done, at least in her mind. She didn't reply to his comment, simply continued talking about that night.
"And then… I mean Sawyer's adorable, but…" she started, clearly not wanting to say anything bad about his nephew, but to this day still wishing that he had just stayed inside. There was no way to know what might have happened differently if the boy hadn't appeared, breaking the spell between them and setting everything else in motion…
He chuckled at that, adding, "Yeah, that time his timing just really, really sucked." He sighed, adding, "Kids…" She nodded, her expression darkening.
"It was stupid, slipping my detail…" she said, looking away from him.
Something happened, he knew immediately. That's why she didn't answer her phone. At the time, she hadn't seemed to care that slipping her detail had put her in danger, as if she didn't quite comprehend that they were there to keep her safe, and not to be a nuisance. The fact that she seemed to now regret it… something significant must have happened, and he waited impatiently for her to go on.
"I didn't even get a block away before these guys jumped me – I don't even know how many. They put a bag over my head, and threw me in a van," she told him in a whisper. She was staring at their hands, and he felt her hands tighten their hold on each other. He tightened his hold around hers in response. "They took me to some abandoned building and I was strapped to a table, or a board, or something… tied down. When they finally took the bag off of my head, I saw that Carter was there. He'd sent those guys after me."
Even without looking at him, she could feel his mood change. He'd already tightened his hold around her hands, and it seemed to intensify even more when she'd finished saying she'd been abducted and tied down by men sent by Carter.
How could I have let her leave there alone? his mind screamed at him. It's my fault. But why didn't she tell me before? Did they hurt her? She'd never said anything… His mind was racing, but despite the hundreds of questions he suddenly had, he remained quiet.
She looked up at him, noticing that his face hand changed completely, and now reflected guilt and anger. Instinctively, she felt like she should smile, to try to be the strong one now that he looked so completely devastated… but she didn't have it in her. No, this wasn't something that could be smoothed over and forgotten. She wasn't angry, she didn't blame him, of course, the way he might blame himself. How could she, when she was at fault for all of it? She looked away from him, unable to say any of this directly – how could she look him in the eye and tell him any of this?
"He told me that I was going to go down a dark hole that one he knew about except him," she said, her voice beginning to shake, as she continued to look anywhere but at him, and shivering at the memory of it. "And I believed him. I still do. I think he would've made me disappear without a second thought."
Kurt couldn't help but agree, silently, that Carter would've done something just so despicable. From their few interactions, he seemed about as dirty as they came, and willing to do absolutely anything to advance his own agenda.
"He said that how nice that hole was depended on how cooperative I was. He wanted to know who I was, who had sent me to the FBI… I kept telling him that I didn't know – because I didn't. Back then, I didn't know any of it. He just kept pouring water over my face, asking me again and again…" She almost choked just remembering how close she'd felt like she was to drowning, despite the fact that she wasn't actually submerged in water.
"Wait… he water boarded you?" Kurt's voice, like his face, was filled with shock and anger, even more so than it had been a few seconds ago. She finally looked back up at him, she was surprised to find he now looked furious – but not with her.
She just nodded. "He didn't believe me, so he kept doing it, and kept asking me those questions… Then I suddenly remembered something – a memory from before – I was dressed in a camouflage uniform, walking down the hall of a building and he was there, talking with someone else. Carter said to the other guy, 'The program is called Orion.' So I asked him what Orion was." She shook her head and closed her eyes for a second, then opened them again and took a breath, telling herself to just continue, so it could be over with.
"Wait," Kurt interjected, "Orion? That's what that jewel thief, Casey, said to you at the hospital… back in the beginning." She nodded, having known that he'd make that connection. He looked at her, waiting for her to say more.
"I shouldn't have have asked him that, of course, because it only made him angrier, and more sure that I knew something that I didn't know. The fact that I knew anything about Orion – which was obviously a secret – made him even more paranoid. He told me that that wasn't 'how this works.'" She swallowed hard, closing her eyes and remembering how terrified she'd felt at that point. "He took out a drill…"
"He what?" Kurt demanded. Somehow, every time he didn't think he could be more horrified with what he was hearing, he was. She just nodded, glancing at him and feeling the fear of that moment course through her.
He could feel her begin to shake, even just through his grip on her hands. More than anything, he wanted to move closer to her and do something more than hold her hands, but he remained in his chair. However, he did lean forward, and somehow managed to pry her hands apart, taking one of them firmly in each of his, and began tracing circles in her palms, as he had before. Looking at the intense look on his face, she wondered if he was doing it more to calm her, and to calm him. Maybe both.
She felt herself begin relax again, but slowly, her breathing returning to normal. She hadn't even realized that she'd be so affected by the memory of Carter. Taking a deep breath, she began again, knowing that there wasn't much more to say about him and needing to finish. "He had the drill out, and he asked me what I knew about Orion. I honestly didn't know anything, other than that one memory, and of Casey saying the word to me before he died. Nothing else. He wouldn't have believed me, though… so… who knows what he would have done to me."
A shiver ran down her spine, shaking her whole body at the thought of what Carter would have done to her if Oscar hadn't come along when he did. Her feelings for Oscar were complicated. The love that her former self had felt for him wasn't there. No, mostly when she thought about him – which she tried not to do – she felt anger. At the same time, he had protected her, even when she had no idea who he was or even that he was doing it – or so he said, anyway. It made things that much more confusing. He'd saved her life that night, and who knew how many other times.
"I was sure that he was about to drill into my skull…" Jane continued, shuddering slightly but trying to get to the end. She was finding that more and more, she had to work to force the words out. "And then suddenly there were gunshots from somewhere nearby. Carter turned around to see where they'd come from. He started to walk away, and then… more gunshots, and he was on the ground. It was Oscar who shot him… I didn't even know who he was at the time… I'd never seen him before."
That I could remember, anyway, she added in her head. She wondered angrily why that had to be the qualifier for everything in her life.
Frustration bubbled up insider her, in addition to everything else. "He saved me," she said, but there was bitterness in her voice. "Apparently he'd been watching me, looking out for me, I'd just never seen him. Then suddenly I remembered… I'd had memories of him, I just hadn't realized they were him, that this was who I was remembering…"
She looked up at him, suddenly feeling crushing guilt. Not guilt about what had happened to Oscar, or that she couldn't remember someone who'd allegedly been everything to her, but guilt because she had to tell Kurt about it. Despite the fact that logically there was no reason for her to feel guilty – after all, they had made no promises to each other – her memories of Oscar were from that other life, the one that was her but someone else... still, she did.
"That was when it came together, when I saw him. I remembered…" Say it, she ordered herself. "I remembered kissing him," he said, the words making her feel slightly nauseous.
He was surprised by the intensity of her reaction to her own words, but to his reaction to them as well. She'd already told him that she'd slept with Oscar, and not in that fuzzy time of black and white memories, but her, Jane. Still, hearing her say that she remembered kissing him before her memory wipe… he felt himself tense. He stared at his thumbs, making circles in her palms, telling himself to think only about her, not about Oscar. It didn't matter anymore, after all, because he was dead, and despite everything, even knowing that she'd slept with him, he knew that she didn't have feelings for him. Not positive ones, anyway.
She stopped, noticing how tense he suddenly was, and knew that this was not going to get easier for either of them as she continued. Wishing desperately that she could stop, she forced herself to continue talking. "I remembered… I made the connection because of the tree tattoo on his forearm. I'd seen the tattoo in a dream I had, which I guess was actually a memory," she continued, "In the dream, and then again just then, I remembered… " She felt herself blushing, possibly a deeper shade of crimson than she ever had before, wondering if she really had to say it, that she remembered sleeping with him as a memory, not as Jane… after all, she'd already told him that she'd slept with him since she'd been Jane, and that was far worse. Did she really have to say it again? She sat staring at him, feeling hot with embarrassment and shame and guilt and fear – fear? – But why?
Fear of his reaction, she realized. When she didn't continue, he looked up and saw her face, conflicted and bright red. He smiled slightly, nodding and looking very much not angry, despite his having stiffened when Oscar became the topic of conversation. Satisfied that he understood, she continued.
"And I remembered giving him back an engagement ring…"
"The one you mentioned at Rich Dotcom's," he said quietly. She had told him that part before, at least. She looked up at him again, and saw so many different things in his eyes… Attempting to take a deep breath to calm herself, she found that instead that it came out raggedly, and her eyes closed again, against her will. Her memories of that day when they'd played the adult version of a kid's fancy dress up game, as assassins, were especially precious to her. It had all been an act, of course, and yet… at the heart of why they had been so believable had been their true feelings for each other, the ones they had still never spoken about. It was almost as though that was how things could have been between them if only things had been different – like in an alternate reality. Once again, coming back to the present from the memories of that day was painful, as it always was.
As her eyes focused once again, this time back on their hands, still clasped together, she heard Rich Dotcom's voice. Not from that night, but from their second encounter with him, just before he'd made his escape. Jane, listen to me. Life is short. You follow your heart. Tell Weller how you feel. It made her cringe, because even to this day, she'd never done that – not even close, really. Here she was telling him all of her secrets, all of the things that she'd kept from him… and yet somehow, she could tell him every horrible secret and still she couldn't tell him how she felt about him.
Didn't you promise yourself to tell him everything? the voice in her head demanded.
Not that, she replied. Not yet.
She pushed past it, back to that horrible night of her abduction. "That was when he – Oscar – showed me the video of her," she shook her head, reminding herself that it hadn't actually been someone else, but her. "No, of me, telling me that I'd…" She paused, inhaling a long, shaky breath before continuing. "That I'd done this to myself." Her head dropped and she closed her eyes, which she'd been doing a lot, she knew, but she simply couldn't help herself, shaking her head and feeling tears gathering. She was surprised that she'd made it as far as she had without losing it again.
Pulling herself back up, she just tried to focus on breathing in and out for a few minutes, slowly becoming aware of the sensation of his thumbs tracing circles in her palms again. She'd been so caught up in her memory of that night, she'd somehow stopped noticing feeling the rhythm of his thumbs' movement. Now she gave into the sensation gratefully, trying to think of nothing except her hands in his.
Everything was so far beyond screwed up, and at that moment she simply couldn't think about it anymore. She now realized that given up what little she'd worked so hard for, and had managed to claim for herself as Jane, and for what? She hadn't gotten any answers. She'd betrayed her team, and the person who was absolutely the most important to her in the world… and somehow she still had him on her side, despite the fact that she absolutely didn't deserve him. She took a slow, deep breath, in and then out, and opened her eyes, staring at their hands. It was safer than looking at him, which she didn't think she could do just them.
She was gathering her thoughts, trying to think of what to say next, when Kurt's voice surprised her. "I'm sorry, Jane," he said. Without even looking up, she heard guilt in his voice, leaving her both surprised and confused, and she couldn't help but look up at him.
"Why?" she asked, completely confused.
"If I hadn't let you just walk away alone that night… This is my fault." He suddenly felt guilt for everything had happened since that night that had led them to this, that all of it was his fault. If those events had not been set in motion… he had pushed her towards all of it.
"Your fault?" she repeated, unable to believe her ears. "After everything I've told you already… how can you possibly think it was your fault?"
"I knew you didn't have your detail and I let you walk away," he replied quickly. "I should either have invited you inside or made sure you got home safely. I just… my head wasn't on straight… I wasn't thinking after that kiss. It's the only explanation I can think of, and it's a terrible one… How could I do that? I'd do anything to protect you, and yet… I didn't even try."
She shook her head sadly. "No Kurt, as that video said, I did this to myself."
He didn't know what to say to that. After all, how did you reason with someone so determined to blame themselves for not only the things that they'd done in what amounted to another life, and that they have no memory of, but also for the things that other people had done all on their own? It was a defense mechanism, he knew, he just wished he knew how to deal with it.
Of course, it was no more all his fault than it was all her fault, but he couldn't see that any better than she could.
So, knowing that he couldn't change her mind, he didn't try to argue with her, he just went on talking. "The next day, when things were… awkward between us… I thought it was just that you regretted kissing me."
Her head was shaking before she even realized it. "I could never regret that," she replied.
"And then suddenly you were talking about how maybe we shouldn't follow your tattoos anymore… I didn't understand. But it makes sense now."
"I hadn't known before then… the plan that was the reason I was sent here. I still don't know what the big picture was, all I could see then was that it was my plan, which scared the hell out of me, and that it had gotten David killed." She paused, bit her lip and looked at him for a few seconds, and then continued, "I couldn't stand the thought of something happening to you because of my plan."
"It wasn't your plan," he corrected her softly. "You're not that woman. You're Jane." He knew it wasn't going to convince her, so he didn't go on, but it seemed like something she needed to hear, at least to plant the seed. It was probably going to take a long, long time to convince her of this.
"That's a convenient excuse," she sighed.
"It's not an excuse," he insisted. "It's a fact. Your memory was erased."
"Not quite," she shot back. "I got to keep just enough to be a punishment."
He sighed then, seeing that she was now just beating herself up. "Let's take a break," he said suddenly. He was getting frustrated with her continued insistence on shouldering all of the blame.
She nodded, pulling her hands from his and standing up, more quickly than he'd expected, walking toward the door of the bathroom. He sighed heavily, leaning forward and running his hands across his face and then back through his hair. While not the heaviest thing they'd had to go over so far, it was still rather excruciating. Suddenly he couldn't sit in that chair any more, and he stood up and began pacing slowly from one end of the room to the other.
In the bathroom, she put cold water on her face, standing back up and putting her face dry. Looking in the mirror, she saw that she looked as bad as she felt. Perfect, she thought sarcastically. She could feel herself shutting down, and she wasn't sure how much more of this she'd be able to take. Part of her longed to go back to her cell and curl up in a ball so that she didn't have to talk anymore. She was so damn sick of talking, of confessing. She reminded herself that she was simply not allowed to decide that she was stopping. Not until she'd told him everything.
More than even how sick she was of confessing, she was sick of the fact that there was just so much to confess. What kind of a person was she, that could do so many terrible things? And yet, she knew that this confession was just a part of her punishment for the things she'd done. The other part, that has handed to her by the FBI, would probably be even worse, but she wouldn't know how bad it would be until she finished her confession. More than anything she just wanted to get it over with.
With a heavy sigh – she was certainly doing a lot of that today – she pushed herself away from the sink and walked back through the door. When she turned toward the table, she was surprised to find Kurt standing there, waiting for her. She went to walk past him, but he put his hand on her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks. "Hey," he said softly. "Hang on." She just looked at him, first with slight irritation, then in confusion, wondering what she was supposed to be waiting for. A moment later, she was surprised when he pulled her into a hug. She stood stiffly for a few seconds, genuinely confused, before she felt herself relaxing against him. Despite the fact that he'd been kind to her since the previous day, she'd spent so much energy today on telling herself she didn't deserve compassion, that when she got such a large dose of it, she simply didn't know what to do.
She'd no sooner laid her forehead forward, against his shoulder, when she felt her breath catch in her lungs. Her arms were around him loosely, as if she was afraid to let herself hold on any tighter… for fear of what, she wasn't sure, other than, perhaps, letting go of all of the emotions that were so tightly bottled up inside her. A choked sob escaped her, despite her best efforts, and she felt him pull her even closer to him.
I don't deserve this, her mind protested, and the thought made her stiffen. His hold on her didn't loosen, however, almost as if he knew what she was thinking. It wouldn't surprise her if he did, really. There was a sensation of falling in the pit of her stomach, and suddenly she was grateful that he was holding onto her so securely, because she wasn't sure that she'd still be standing if he hadn't been.
There was a change in her as they stood there. Actually, there were several. She stood stiffly at first, when he'd pulled her into the hug that he could see that she needed, even if she couldn't, but then she'd leaned her forehead against him, seeming to relax and even let go a little. She seemed overwhelmed, which she was, of course, and let out a sob – undoubtedly against her will, because she seemed unwilling to let go completely.
And then suddenly something had changed, and she'd stiffened again. He couldn't help but wonder what had gone through her head. Since he couldn't know, he did the one thing that he could do, and held on tighter. For some reason, it seemed to him that when she pushed people away, it was then that she actually needed him to hold on tighter… and when it came to her, his instincts were usually right.
PATTERSON, ZAPATA AND READE
They'd turned away from the monitors to look at each other when Jane had stood up, taking a breath and taking it all in. Carter had abducted Jane. Despite each of their personal feelings of hatred toward Carter, this had still come as a shock to them. He was an asshole, yes, that was a given. But a corrupt one as well… that was a revelation by itself, though not a surprise. It was a fact that would undoubtedly cause a stir among the FBI and the CIA alike. They couldn't help but wonder about the fallout from this part of Jane's confession, and whether this information would help or hurt her, and her chances of being let out of custody. After all, she hadn't killed Carter – at least according to what she said.
They weren't sure if there would be any more than her word to go on, of course. Whatever organization had sent Jane to the FBI, they were extremely thorough. Leaving traces of their handiwork behind was apparently just not something they did.
Weller stood up soon after Jane did, and the three agents talked quietly among themselves, just as glad for this break as the two in the interrogation room. They glanced at the monitors frequently, seeing that Jane and Kurt had yet to sit back down at the table.
As completely non-objective as Kurt was in this case, even Reade had to admit that Weller was the right one to be getting this information from her – they couldn't actually call what he was doing interrogating her, since he wasn't asking her anything, she was simply telling him what had happened. He didn't need to ask her anything. They had no doubt that she would have simply continued to hold out on anyone else, but with Weller… the connection that had always been between the two was now the key to finding out the truth about Jane Doe. This was a completely unusual technique, breaking all protocol, but then again, it was Jane. There was nothing normal about her or her case, and it had been that way from the beginning.
They saw the two in the other room, at the edge of the frame, as Weller had pulled her into a hug. This wasn't the part they needed to watch, and they focused more on their own thoughts, falling silent. Zapata volunteered to go for more coffee for the group, the door seeming to echo behind her as she left.
It was going to be a long day.