I do not own Blindspot or its characters.

This day couldn't end soon enough.

Jane pasted a smile on her face as another agent whose face she didn't recognize and whose name she would never remember dropped by her desk to congratulate her on her marriage to Kurt. The news had spread throughout the building like wildfire, thanks to Zapata placing a word in a few well-chosen ears that the wedding had in fact been real.

She still had no idea what their supposed excuse for keeping it a secret was, but fortunately, no one mentioned that. Nor did she know what to do with the impromptu shower of belated wedding gifts that were piling up on her desk. It seemed every agent in the building was anxious to express their well-wishes to Kurt, and since he was in a meeting with Pellington, they left them with her.

Well . . . every agent except one.

"Don't look at me," Zapata said as she approached. "I'm not getting you anything." She jerked her head toward the elevator where Reade was waiting. "Come on."

"Where are we going?" Jane asked warily as she rose and followed her.

"Your safe house," Zapata said tersely. "Weller asked us to help you pack up your things." Her tone of voice made it clear what she thought of that. She was an FBI agent, not a mover, but she could hardly say no to her boss. Especially when he was asking for help with his wife. Even a newly acquired one that he had wanted no part of.

Reade tried to make small talk on the drive, but both women answered him in monosyllables, and he eventually gave up. "Wow," Zapata commented as they walked inside, seeing nothing changed from the night they had first brought her back here. "And I thought you didn't have much last time. This isn't gonna take long at all."

Jane shrugged. "Less for you guys to clear out when the CIA gets ahold of me again." She'd meant the remark to be flippant, but the quaver in her voice gave her away.

"You're not going to be handed back over to them ever again, Jane," Reade instantly assured her. "You're the wife of the Assistant Director of the FBI now, and it's being highly publicized. Trust me, the CIA isn't going to want to come within a hundred miles of you once that article hits the newsstands."

Jane gave a noncommittal nod. Marriage to Kurt was a temporary reprieve, at best; she was reasonably certain that Keaton would bide his time however long it took to get his hands on her. She had humiliated him with her escape, and he wasn't the type of man to be able to let that go.

But at least she now had time to formulate an exit strategy.

She grabbed a duffel bag. "I'll pack up my personal things." God knew that wouldn't take long. "If you guys . . . if you could clean out the refrigerator and cupboards, that would be great." She disappeared into the bedroom without waiting for their response.

Zapata raised an eyebrow at Jane's departing back. "Yes, ma'am."

"Come on, Tasha," Reade said as he opened the refrigerator, weary of the constant sniping between the two. "Lay off. Do you really want to make Weller have to choose between you and his wife?"

"His fake wife," Zapata corrected, though she knew it was a distinction without a difference at this point. She doubted Weller could be under the same roof as Jane for any length of time without giving in to the attraction he clearly still felt for her. If she were still a betting woman, she could make a fortune off this situation. "And forgive me for not cozying up to a woman who just insinuated that we wouldn't hesitate to hand her back over to the CIA."

"That's not exactly what she said," Reade countered. Though given what had happened, those fears wouldn't be unjustified. And now that he thought about it . . . "And she's not wrong to worry about that. This marriage to Weller isn't going to last forever, and the CIA snatched her off the street once before. Once the publicity dies down and it's over . . . what's to stop them from doing it again?" And throwing her in a dark hole too deep to escape from this time.

Zapata felt herself go cold as his words sank in. "Do you think Weller realizes that?"

Reade shrugged. "I doubt it, or Rich Dotcom wouldn't have needed to trick him into marrying Jane." He glanced toward the bedroom. "I'm pretty sure she does, though." He hoped she would talk to Weller about it, but he was less certain of that.

There was no way in hell that was going to happen on her watch, Zapata thought fiercely, making a mental note to talk to Weller about it the first chance she got, shifting from reluctant teammate to determined protector in the blink of an eye. If anyone deserved to punish Jane, it was them.

Not that she hadn't already suffered enough.

"Is that all your stuff?" she demanded when Jane emerged from the bedroom with a duffel bag that clearly had room to spare. Her go-bag for when the team travelled contained more than that. Weller obviously needed to take her on a serious shopping spree. Or she and Patterson did. Her eyes narrowed as an idea occurred to her, and a slow smile spread across her face as she realized it was time to bury the hatchet . . . and just how she was going to do it.

"Never mind, of course it is. Not exactly like you've had time to go shopping." Though she was quickly warming to the idea of correcting that. Especially if it was on Weller's dime.

She was quiet as they finished packing up the kitchen, though Reade knew her well enough to feel a shiver run down his spine at the imp of mischief dancing in her eyes. He grew even more nervous when she instructed him to take a detour on the way back. "I'm really not sure—"

"Just do it, Reade," Zapata ordered impatiently. "There are a few things I need to pick up, and it can't wait. I promise I won't be long." And it wasn't like they had a case today anyway.

"Okay," Reade grumbled as he pulled up in front of the mall, "but if we get busted for this, it's your ass. I'm not taking the rap for you."

"Oh, don't worry," Zapata said cheerfully as she hopped out, "I can almost guarantee Weller won't have anything to say about this." With any luck, he'd swallow his tongue. "Jane, do you want to come along?" She held her breath, praying for Jane to say no. Her plan would work much better on her own, but it would look suspicious if she didn't ask.

"No thanks." Jane shook her head. This place was huge, and she suspected Zapata was a rabid shopper, as opposed to her, who preferred to go to the smallest store she could find, and then only when there was something she absolutely couldn't live without.

"Your loss," Zapata said, doing her best to look suitably disappointed as she shut the door and hurried toward the entrance. True to her word, she was back in just a little over thirty minutes, though she had been hard-pressed to resist the lure of several other stores she passed.

Reade's eyebrows rose as she climbed back into the passenger seat, and he got a good look at the striped box she was carrying. "You really think buying lingerie is an appropriate use of FBI time, Tasha?"

In this case, she thought it was an excellent use of FBI time. "Relax," she advised him, frowning slightly at the stern look he shot her. "It's not like Weller knew how long it was going to take us to pack up Jane's place, and if he'd needed us, he would have called." Besides, she had a plan to make it damn near impossible for him to object to what she had done.

And provide maximum enjoyment for her, of course.

Weller was just wrapping up his meeting with Pellington when they returned, and Zapata waited until he got in the elevator to leave, and she saw Jane go into Weller's office to pick up the box she had secreted under her desk and followed her in there. It took everything in her to bite back her smile when Jane's eyes widened to the size of saucers at the sight of it.

"I know I said I wasn't going to get you anything for a wedding present, but then I realized it's time to let bygones be bygones, so . . ." She held the box out to Jane, noting with satisfaction the heated look in Weller's eyes before he speared her with a furious glare. The allure of gambling had never been stronger than at this moment. What she wouldn't give to make a bet with Reade on how long it took before Weller saw Jane in one of the bra-and-panty sets she had painstakingly selected. "Here." She shoved the box into Jane's arms when the other woman made no effort to reach for it.

Weller swallowed hard. "I hardly think that constitutes an appropriate wedding gift, Zapata," he said, his tone much less stringent than he had intended.

"I disagree." Zapata shot him a carefully practiced wounded look as Jane lifted the lid off the box. "People buy lingerie as wedding gifts all the time, boss. And most of them have much bigger wardrobes than poor Jane here. Why, she has so little stuff that it's almost criminal. You really should let us take her on a shopping spree soon."

"Fine," Weller muttered distractedly, craning his head to try to see the contents of the box and unaccountably disappointed when Jane started to close it back up before he could get a good look. Fortunately, Zapata intervened.

"Here." Zapata took the box back out of Jane's hands and set it down on Weller's desk, determined to wring every ounce of enjoyment out of this she could after the small fortune she had expended on it. She lifted the first of the sets from the box. "This one's a little boring, I know—" though judging from the way Weller's eyes lingered on it as she set it aside, he disagreed, "—but every girl should have a set in your basic black. I also got you one with a little more bling," she added as she handed her another black set with a myriad of sparkles in varying colors adorning it.

"This one—" she lifted the emerald green set out next, "—this one will complement your eyes perfectly. Trust me, no guy will be able to resist you when he sees you in it." Weller looked like he wanted to strip Jane naked and put it on her before ripping it off. "And finally—" she lifted out the candy apple red set that she had purchased on a whim because it brought to mind the analogy of waving the red flag in front of the proverbial bull, "—the piece de resistance."

"It's beautiful, Zapata," Jane said quietly as she took the lacy underwear from her and ran her hand over the supersoft fabric. She had no use for it, of course, or any of them, since they were much too fancy to use for every day wear, and there was no point in using them for special occasions—if any of those arose—since she was the only one who would ever see them.

She didn't want to examine why she was so unaccountably disappointed by that realization. "They're all beautiful. Thank you." She carefully placed them back in the box and closed the lid.

"You're welcome," Zapata assured her cheerfully. "And don't worry about finding something to wear with them. Patterson and I will be more than happy to help you out with that this weekend."

She breathed a sigh of relief as she exited the office. That had gone much better than she anticipated. She'd known if she got out of there without receiving a dressing-down that she was home free. Weller would have to bring up the subject again in order to reprimand her, and she had a feeling he would simply choose to let sleeping dogs lie.

And if they did so in a gorgeous set of lingerie, so much the better.

Jane hesitantly brought her eyes up to meet Kurt's gaze. "Well," she ventured, "I have a feeling this may be the most . . . interesting wedding present we've received."

"Want me to transfer her to Alaska?" Kurt offered, only half-joking. He was grateful that Zapata seemed to be letting go of her grudge against Jane, but he was at a loss for why she had chosen to spend her money on such an outlandish gift when she knew their marriage was a sham. Unless she thought that Jane might model them for some other man in the future?

He felt a surge of unreasoning fury at the very idea.

Jane's soft laughter snapped him back to reality, and Kurt's brow furrowed as he recalled her earlier statement. "So this isn't the first present we've been given? There are more?"

Jane couldn't stop her eyes from darting toward her desk, and his jaw dropped as he followed her gaze and saw the mound of brightly wrapped gifts on and around it. "Agents began dropping them off shortly after you started your meeting with Pellington. We're definitely going to have to make a few trips to the garage to haul them all out of here."

From the looks of things, the best thing to do might be to stash them in his office and haul them home a few at a time. If they took them all home tonight, they'd spend the rest of the night unloading them, and they had more important things to do this evening.

They had the rest of their lives together to plan out.

Jane had no fault to find with that plan, and they quickly moved the gifts to a corner of his office, placing a few on the table near the door to take with them, Zapata's among those. That box was entirely too distinctive to leave lying around. Especially since it was unwrapped.

An awkward silence fell between them when they'd finished as it fully dawned on them that when they left the office this time, they would be going home together as man and wife. "Well, Mrs. Weller," Kurt teased to cover his nervousness, "I guess that's that. Are you ready to go?"

"Ready when you are," Jane agreed, pausing a beat before adding, "Mr. Weller."

Both of them grinned like fools all the way to the elevator.