Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)
The walk to the car was far less awkward than she would have expected, all things considered, though they each kept their hands at their sides. At least once every other minute, their hands or their shoulders would brush together, which would make them each blush, smile and glance at the other, not necessarily in that order or at the same time. It should have been awkward, and yet somehow… for the most part, it wasn't. She was, however, getting more and more curious by the minute about what he wanted to tell her.
Once they were in the car, he turned the key in the ignition to start the heat, and then turned to face her, blowing into his cupped hands slightly to warm them up from the chilly walk through the garage.
"So, tell me," she prompted him, turning to face him as well. "What's the big secret?"
He shook his head, chuckling slightly, and glanced down for a second before looking back up at her. "It's no big secret," he replied. "It's just… there's a little more information about this weekend I should give you up front, before you make a final decision. And if you don't want to come along, I totally understand. Trust me, it's fine."
"Okay, now you'd better start explaining, because I'm both fascinated and a little bit scared," Jane said with a laugh.
Smiling and winking at her, the way he sometimes used to, he shook his head, trying to think of where to start. "Okay, so you heard me tell Patterson that Sarah and Sawyer are out at my dad's old house in Pennsylvania," he said evenly, his eyes returning to hers and a more serious look coming over him. It made sense, because he was always serious the very few times he talked about either his dad or Clearfield, Pennsylvania. What had happened there had left him traumatized for twenty-five years, after all. "Okay, well, they flew out from Portland yesterday, and they're there through Christmas. Sarah and I are going to sell the house after the new year sometime, probably in the spring. There's nothing left there for us, and… well, neither of us have any intention of living there…"
Jane was pretty sure that she now saw where this was going, but she waited for him to say what he wanted to say. Smiling encouragingly, she nodded and waited for him to go on.
"So anyway, she got this funny idea that we – her, Sawyer and I – should spend Christmas out there one more time before we sell the house next year. She thinks it'll give me closure, or something like that." He almost spit the word closure from his mouth, Jane couldn't help but notice, and she looked at him in surprise. Of course, she hadn't spent a lot of time with him since his dad had died – almost none – and they certainly hadn't talked about any of it. They'd barely talked about things between the two of them, much less anyone else. So though she was surprised to hear his tone change so quickly, at the same time, she understood. To have found out what Kurt had… it was enough to scar someone for life. He was functioning better than she could possibly imagine doing after something like that.
That's interesting, coming from the woman who had her memory erased and was sent into the FBI as a Trojan Horse for a terrorist organization, etc etc, the voice in her head said flatly. But I think what happened to you would still be more traumatizing.
Except that I can't remember half of what happened to me, Jane interjected. I certainly don't have twenty-five years' worth of traumatized memories. Now shut up.
Refocusing on Kurt, she saw him looking down in front of him, lost in his thoughts.
"The only time I've been there in – I don't know… fifteen? Twenty years? Was when Sarah and I drove out there the night my dad died… to look for where he—" Kurt tried to push through the rest of the sentence, but his voice cracked and then simply refused to work after that.
A wave of guilt and sympathy crashed over Jane at that moment. That night had been the beginning of Hell for her, but looking back now, she could also see that it had been the beginning of a different kind of Hell for him as well. She could only imagine how he'd felt when Sarah had asked him to go back there again, and so soon. She appreciated what the younger Weller was trying to do for her brother, but it seemed risky. Kurt was an expert at detaching from his feelings, after all, and working through things might not come so easily. Closure sounded like a good idea… but would it work? Or would he simply torture himself for the time that he was there, and then some more after he got home? Would it make things better, or would it make things worse?
"She might be right," Jane said, tentatively reaching over to lay her hand on his arm. It was hard, in the car, because they were held back from each other by the center console and could only get so close… "And even if she isn't…"
"It'll make her very happy," he said softly, looking at Jane, glancing down to where her hand rested on his arm, and watching her smile grow as he finished her sentence. He shook his head to clear his thoughts then, and continued. "So, anyway, I would love to have your company this weekend. Really. Even more than usual. But it means a road trip, and the weather is now calling for more than a little bit of snow. I'm actually pretty anxious to get on the road, before it gets bad. Sarah said that it hasn't started out there yet, but that part of Pennsylvania tends to get a lot of snow in the winter, so…"
He paused, trying to gauge her reaction. Considering that her hand had remained on his arm, her thumb moving back and forth slowly, he thought that he might actually have a decent chance that she'd say yes, even though he knew that it was a crazy thing to be asking her. Somehow, he just felt like it was the right thing to do.
When he'd imagined the trip before, he'd felt a heavy sense of dread about going back there. He'd told himself that after that night, he would never go back there. But it had meant so much to Sarah, and he hated to deny her something that they wouldn't get another chance to do, the chance to have closure of her own. After all, his father was her father as well, and as someone who had always believed in their father's innocence, unlike Kurt, learning that their father actually had killed Taylor Shaw had been hard on Sarah in a different way. She hadn't spent the past twenty-five years convinced that their father was guilty, like her brother had.
But the idea of going back to Clearfield one last time with Jane… Even though she wasn't Taylor, in some ways the thought of being there with her calmed him. Not that that should have been a surprise, because now that he'd stopped being angry with her, the thought of her seemed to calm him no matter what. Despite everything, for a reason that he couldn't explain, the thought of going back to Clearfield one last time with Jane made him feel like there just might be closure after all.
"Originally I was going to leave tomorrow in the late morning or early afternoon, because it's about four and a half hours from here, occasionally a little more. But now, with the storm that's supposed to be moving through the whole northern half of Pennsylvania tomorrow night, I'm thinking I should leave first thing tomorrow. Just to give myself time, play it safe…" Again, he stopped and looked at her, growing more doubtful the longer she said nothing. "What do you think? I mean, I know it's kind of a… Well, it's not usually something people ask when they're not…"
He was dancing around the fact that they weren't a couple, that at this same time the previous day they hadn't even been on friendly terms with each other, and therefore hadn't even been speaking to each other unless there was no reason to be. Things had still been too tense between them, despite Kurt having insisted that they were 'friends,' not that long ago. No, no matter the intensity of their feelings that had resurfaced for each other, it was all still… well, it just wasn't the kind of thing that happened. After all, it had literally been only that same day that they'd come to a real understanding. Even for someone who moved fast, which neither of them were, that would have been moving extremely fast. No, both Jane and Kurt tended toward slow and cautious when it came to dealing with other people. Very cautious.
But then again, it wasn't as though they'd just met. He could argue that she knew him better than most people – if not all people – had ever known him, even his own sister, who he'd known the longest. And as for her, well, he knew her better than the two people who had known her for most or all of her life, thanks to the fact that she was now a completely different person.
Jane grinned at him then, squeezing her hand on his arm. This version of current Kurt Weller, the one sitting in front of her nervously asking her to go to his family's house for Christmas – never mind that she already knew and loved Sarah and Sawyer and that really, he shouldn't have been nervous – and who was suddenly too shy to come out and say, "And I know that it's really weird because we're not a couple," probably because after one day it almost felt like they were a couple, or at least, something very much like one… this version of him was simply too cute for words.
"Yeah," Jane said, nodding at him with a straight face, "It seems like this should be very weird, right?" The relief in his face was obvious now that he knew that he wasn't going to have to explain any further what he was trying to say.
"I guess you could say that, yeah," he replied. "It almost like it's the opposite of weird."
Her face broke out into a smile then, one of the biggest ones he could remember seeing from her so far. "So… the fact that it should be weird, but it isn't… is that weird?" She bit her lip to hold back her laughter, and when he chuckled, she joined in, glad that she could lessen the tension that had suddenly built up. For once, she was glad that she hadn't been the one who'd been over thinking things.
When they stopped laughing, however, his face grew serious again and he looked at her uncertainly. Finally taking pity on him, she smiled warmly and said, "Well, as exciting as it was going to be to sit in my empty safe house and stare at the wall all weekend, if you want some company on your road trip in the snow, I'd love to help you out with that." He reached over and put his left hand on top of hers, on his right arm, and then took her hand in his, moving it down his arm so that he could switch, and hold her left hand loosely in his right.
As he had moved her hand down to his, a flicker of a frown passed across his face for a second. He didn't like to hear that she hadn't had any plans for Christmas, even though he should have easily been able to guess that.
Who exactly did you expect her to have planned to get together with? he asked himself.
It was ridiculous for him to feel guilty, of course, he told himself, because it wasn't part of his job to ensure that she wasn't alone… and at least in theory, she could have been out in the world meeting people over the past few months. She could have known someone who would have invited her to do something…
Right, the voice in his head said, So the woman who was abducted and literally tortured by the CIA for three months after learning that she was a mole for a terrorist organization who'd had her memory wiped is well-adjusted enough to go out into the world and make friends? When he said the words in his head, even he knew that it was ridiculous. It wasn't impossible, of course, but it was simply not going to happen.
But you're here now, trying to fix it, he told himself. Once again, you can't go back and fix the rest of it. But you can still do something now.
She saw the look pass across his face and wondered if it was something she should ask him about, but the shadow passed from his expression and he smiled broadly, so she let it go.
I'm going to the Weller family's house for Christmas, she thought to herself in awe. Four and a half or more hours in the car with Kurt – which, she could admit, would have been enough to make her happy all on its own. No empty safe house for me all weekend. This was simply getting better and better the more she thought about it. Again, it should have been weird, uncomfortable, awkward… and yet, it wasn't. It felt exactly right. And so, because she could find no reason not to, she found herself getting very excited.
"So, logistically speaking," Kurt said, now ready to talk details, "we should leave as early tomorrow as possible."
"No problem," Jane replied without thinking, "I never really sleep anyway." Granted, Kurt had known this at one point, but she hadn't exactly planned to announce it to him. Still, if she was going to his house for the weekend, he probably would have figured it out sooner than later…
Kurt's brain screeched to an abrupt halt and his mouth opened in surprise. He looked at her with concern, surprised by this development when he had been focused on making plans. It took him a few seconds to switch gears as he watched her, worry suddenly visible on his face. "Are you… having nightmares again?"
Jane shrugged, looking away. "Again… still… whatever you want to call it. They never really stopped completely, and then after…" She shrugged and shook her head, and was about to try to pull her hand back from his so that she could clasp it with her right hand, which was fidgeting alone against her right leg. However, in the split second before she tried to move her hand away, she felt him squeeze it a little more firmly, as if to tell her that he wasn't going to let her retreat.
It had been so long since anyone – and it had been Kurt the only other time that she could remember, as well – had made her feel that way, that they were there for her no matter what, she suddenly found that she wanted to cry with relief. She'd convinced herself that she was fine on her own, that she didn't need or want anyone else, because it had been necessary for self-preservation.
She'd done such an effective job of lying to herself, however, that even she had been surprised to find out that it wasn't true. She did need someone, and not just anyone, as she had discovered when she'd tried going out with Oliver. He was a nice enough guy, remarkably uncomplicated, but when it came down to it… he wasn't Kurt. At first, Jane had thought that that had worked in Oliver's favor, only to quickly realize that that was his greatest weakness.
Kurt nodded, filing this information away. It was yet another thing that he should have known about Jane, but hadn't, and just another reason why he felt that he needed to make it up to her. "Okay, uh… I'm sorry, Jane. Is there… anything I can do?" He suddenly felt helpless, and though he never liked that feeling, when it came to Jane, he simply couldn't stand by and do nothing. He promised himself that he would find a wayto do something to help her with this... though at that moment he was at a loss as to what that would be.
Jane just shook her head quickly. "No, I mean… I don't have them nearly as often as I used to. It's… getting better, slowly…"
He nodded, not sure what else he could do or say on the topic. "Well, if you think of anything…" Nodding, she smiled back at him appreciatively, and he swore to himself that he'd pay attention.
It shouldn't be hard to pay closer attention to her, he told himself, considering that you were barely speaking before, and now you're… well, whatever it is you're doing.
"So, you want to leave first thing tomorrow morning," she prompted him again, anxious to steer the conversation away from her, and back to their road trip.
Looking momentarily confused, he suddenly remembered what they'd been talking about when he'd stumbled across the fact that Jane was still having nightmares, which had thrown him off track. "What? Oh, right," he said, blinking quickly and then nodding. "So, I can drop you off tonight, and then pick you up around…" He looked at her quizzically, trying to figure out what counted as 'not too early' in Jane's head. She was known to be at work at six o'clock in the morning sometimes, so… "six?"
Nodding slowly, she said, "Yeah, that would work." It seemed silly, though, if he was that anxious to get on the road, to have him drive out to her place twice… It wasn't far, but it was still an extra stop. However, she didn't think she was quite bold enough to suggest what she was thinking.
It's not that big a deal, the voice in her head assured her, but she wasn't so sure. Things had been good between them for less than one day, so it was hard to know anything for sure.
You know it's not as simple as saying "It's been less than one day," the voice assured her. It's not as though you just met. That would be crazy. You've known him for a long time, for better or worse. You two are an exception to every rule in existence. Even when you had just met, it wasn't like it was the first day. There was always something between you…
As usual, her thoughts must have showed on her face, because only a few seconds later, she heard him saying, "Jane, you look like you have another idea."
Her cheeks flushed immediately, and she nodded slowly once again. Looking down at her right hand, which was bouncing slightly against her right leg, not having her left hand to fidget with since Kurt was still holding it, she replied, "Well I was just thinking, if you want to save the time it would take to pick me up in the morning, I could…." She bit her lip, wishing there was some way that she could not have to say the rest of her sentence. Alas, she couldn't think of one, so she forced herself to continue. "I could just crash on your couch and then we could leave early."
Probably because she just wanted it over with, her last sentence had come out in rapid-fire succession, as if the faster she said it, the faster it would be over with, and it made him smile. After all, he'd just had the same thought, but had hesitated to say anything. The other reason he was smiling was that she looked so darn cute, as flustered as she was by what she'd just said. "Funny that you should mention that," he said, squeezing her hand reassuringly, "I had just been thinking the same thing."
She looked up then, surprised, and saw him smiling at her, and felt herself relax. Awkward situation number five million four, diffused, she thought to herself in relief.
Nodding with relief at the knowledge that she wasn't going to have to spend a night alone in her safe house at least for the next few days, she couldn't help but smile. The weekend away from her safe house with Kurt in itself was quite possibly the best Christmas present she could have asked for, and certainly more than she'd dreamed that she would have gotten.
"Alright, so we have a plan," Kurt said, returning to logistical planning mode. "We'll swing by your place so you can get whatever you need for the next few days, and then go back to my place." It felt strange to say to Jane, We'll go back to my place…
No, strange is not the right word, he corrected himself in his head. Then something else occurred to him.
"Hey, Jane, what kind of winter stuff do you have? You know, for snow." This could be an issue at this time of night if they were going to leave first thing. If they had to drive out to the suburbs to find a twenty-four hour Wal-Mart, he supposed they could, but it would be better if they didn't have to.
Jane shrugged, the reality of her situation being that at this point, she had no winter gear at all. Of course, she had had some the previous year. Patterson and Zapata had taken her shopping numerous times to be sure that she had everything she needed. She had had a lot of things last year that she didn't have this year…
Because everything in her safe house when Kurt had arrested her had been taken away.
She looked back down at her lap again, the words only just barely coming out loud enough for him to hear. "Nothing… anymore."
The second word blared like a siren in his head, acting like a noise so loud that he was deaf for a few seconds afterwards, his head spinning a little bit. Dammit, he thought. I should have realized… But it was done, the words were out, and all of the things that had happened, had happened. Forward, he told himself, not backwards.
"Oh… uh… right," he said awkwardly, nodding at her and squeezing her hand once again. "Well, when we get to my place I'll see if Sarah left anything behind. Or maybe she has extra stuff that you can use once we get out there. Sarah tends to overpack, to put it nicely…" He smiled as he remembered how many times he'd given his sister a hard time about how much she would cram into a suitcase for even just a weekend trip. She always tended to pack as though she was never coming back – she was incredibly fast at doing it, however. "And if we need to, we'll stop somewhere that's open twenty-four hours. Okay?" he added, hoping that talking about Sarah and reassuring her that they could still get what they needed would draw Jane back out from her thoughts… especially those thoughts.
Looking back over at him slowly, she forced herself to smile, though she didn't feel it and knew that it probably didn't quite reach her eyes. She nodded quickly, the nod that told him that she wasn't quite okay, but that she was trying to be.
"Alright, so… we have a plan," Kurt declared soothingly. "Let me just send Sarah a text now, before I forget, and we'll get going to your place." After all, they were still sitting in the parking garage at the FBI, and the party was long since over by this point. It was getting late, especially since there was a lot to do between now and early morning tomorrow.
Needing both hands for this endeavor, he squeezed her hand once more before letting it go, and she withdrew it slowly back to her lap, missing the contact already. While Kurt typed rapidly into his phone, Jane sat and tried to imagine a Christmas with Kurt, Sarah and Sawyer. She knew just how dysfunctional he thought his little family was, but she also knew that next to what she had, his family was perfect. For the first time, she allowed herself to enjoy the thought of Christmas, rather than dread it as she had been doing for months.
Almost as soon as Kurt hit send and set his phone down in the console between them, it began to buzz excitedly, again and again. Glancing down at it, all Jane could make out was a lot of exclamation marks. Kurt picked it up again to see what his sister was typing so fast, and he chuckled. "She's just a little bit excited," he said, as his phone continued to buzz.
How in the world is she typing so fast? he wondered. Kurt wasn't exactly fast at texting, but he did alright. He had several things working against him - his fingers were far bigger than the keys on the tiny keyboard, and the autocorrect on his phone tended to have a very strange sense of humor, so he spent a fair amount of time correcting crazy mistakes… but his sister was making him look extremely slow just then.
He held up his phone so that Jane could see the messages that had now suddenly filled his entire screen, most of the small text bubbles at least half full of exclamation marks, which made her smile. "I wonder which of the three of us is most excited…" she said jokingly, only realizing after she'd said it quite what she'd just said.
"So you're excited?" he asked her teasingly, raising his eyebrows and grinning happily.
She couldn't help but smile, and she rolled her eyes at his teasing. "Let's see… I'm happy that I'll be able to give my detail a few days off for Christmas, because I know they'll be excited about that," she started.
"That's a good point," he interjected, opening a new message and typing into his phone to inform the relevant parties of that exact thing before he forgot.
"Okay," he replied a minute later, "I just took care of that."
"Thanks," she said, returning to her list, "I'm excited to not have to sit alone in my house for Christmas."
He winced slightly at that one, she noticed, but she said nothing about it. After all, she wasn't going to have to do that, which was a cause for her to be happy, so he should be too. None of the other "what would have beens" mattered.
He just hated that that had even been something that she'd been planning to do. He vowed to himself to do better – just generally to do a better job of taking care of Jane.
"I'm excited to see a place I've never seen before," she said tactfully. Honestly, she was excited to be going to Clearfield, though she wouldn't say that to Kurt. She knew that he had extremely mixed feelings, at best, about going there himself, and that he would have probably have preferred never to go back there again. But after hearing the stories, and after thinking for so long that she was Taylor Shaw, she felt a special closeness with the little girl who she had never been, and who had died so long before she'd ever been Jane… it was hard to explain, but she felt like going to Clearfield was a gift to her that she hadn't expected to get. Besides, she had a feeling that her presence would make things easier for Kurt. At least… she hoped so.
"I'm excited to see snow again," she added, nearly at the end of her list. She'd seen snow the previous year, of course, as they'd had a few snowstorms in the city, though nothing had stuck around for too long each time. This would be very different, she knew. Besides, she didn't particularly want to think about last year, anyway, so it would almost be like her first time seeing snow, even though it wasn't.
"This will be completely unlike getting snow in New York City," he told her. "When Clearfield gets snow… well, especially with the storm they're talking about… It's going to be a lot. I told Sarah to be sure she stocked up on groceries today so we had what we needed, in case the road don't get plowed for a few days."
Nodding excitedly, she said, "I can't wait." He chuckled, looking down at his phone, the flood of texts from Sarah seeming to have slowed as she undoubtedly went about preparing the house for their extra guest – even now, probably twelve hours in advance and so late at night. That was just how Sarah's brain worked – she was a typical mother hen.
"But mostly…" she added, her voice suddenly quieter. He turned back toward her in surprise, having thought that her list was finished. "I'm excited to be spending Christmas with you," she told him, glancing at him and then out the front window, before looking back at him. "I never thought…" She trailed off, unable to finish her sentence, but not needing to.
He nodded back at her, smiling but feeling a little bit guilty for so many mistakes at the same time. It doesn't matter, he told himself. You're both here, just focus on that.
"I know," he replied, because he hadn't thought they'd end up there together either – not there or anywhere else – not in a million years. It was beyond what he could have wished for. They both looked back at each other then, their smiles having vanished, simply looking into each other's eyes for the first time in a few minutes. There was so much emotion flowing through each other them, and between the two of them, just then… After a few minutes, however, they smiled, the slight awkwardness finally disappearing. After all, when faced with the thought of a few days together, neither of them could do anything but smile.
"Okay, we really need to get going now," Kurt declared, finally shifting the car into reverse so that he could back out of the parking spot. There weren't many cars left around them, only the skeleton crew being in the building at night when there wasn't a reason for others to be there.
Exiting the garage and pulling out into the moderate traffic that marked the last Friday night before Christmas in the city, when lots of people were out and about either doing last minute shopping or celebrating, the interior of the car was suddenly much darker than it had been under the florescent lights of the parking garage. As they wove through the dark streets, Jane stared out the window at the lights around them, both the Christmas decorations and the various lights that always lit up the city at night, letting her eyes unfocus and watching the colors blur into each other. It all became a soothing blend of color that went by before her eyes, and she felt herself begin to get sleepy. Yawning again, she leaned her head back against the headrest, turned slightly towards Kurt and fighting to keep her eyes open.
Glancing over at her, Kurt chuckled. This was just another thing that reminded him of the time at the beginning, when he'd first met Jane – when she'd first been Jane. She'd fallen asleep in his car twice on the first night that he'd taken her to her safe house, having been exhausted after a full twenty four hours, or maybe more, at FBI headquarters being interrogated, tested and scanned. It hadn't been the same safe house that they were headed for at that moment, but that was a small distinction. The basic idea was the same.
It feels like the beginning again, but this time, with the benefit of hindsight, he thought. Yes, he knew that they would make new mistakes this time around, but it seemed impossible that they'd make mistakes that were anywhere near as big as the ones they'd already made and gotten past. At least, he wanted to believe that this was true.
He forced himself to pay attention to the road, but it was hard. Every few seconds he glanced over at her, watching as she now slept peacefully in the seat beside him. It wasn't a very long drive to her safe house, so he knew she'd be waking up again very soon even if she managed to sleep the whole way. For those few minutes, however, he enjoyed seeing her look so serene. She may have still been having nightmares sometimes, but at that moment, she definitely wasn't. He was amused to see that she was actually smiling in her sleep.
When he stopped the car outside her safe house, she jerked awake almost immediately and he watched in surprise and dismay as her eyes flew open in what looked like panic. Does she always wake up like that? he wondered, thinking that that would be like some sort of curse. To always wake up and feel as afraid as she looked until she got her bearings… That would be horrible.
Once again without stopping to consider what he was doing – he seemed to be doing a lot of that when it came to Jane, today – he reached his right hand toward her, laying it gently on her arm. "Hey," he said quietly, hoping that he was helping her calm down, and not making her more anxious. "You okay?"
She just nodded, her eyes darting around for a few seconds before settling on him. "We're here, I guess?" she asked, yawning again.
"Yeah," he replied, his thumb moving back and forth on her arm slowly, just as hers had done on his arm not long ago, while his hand stayed still. He sat and watched her as she calmed down, and then smiled at him.
"Okay," she said, glancing shyly at where his hand rested on her arm, and then slowly looked up at him. "We should get inside so I can get some things together."
"Right," he agreed, his eyes not moving from her face and his hand only very slowly letting go of her arm. She couldn't help but smile at him, wondering just what kind of magic had happened over the last few hours that had changed things between them so radically.
Somehow she managed to turn away from his gaze in order to open her door, only to be immediately be assaulted by the biting cold wind that had already kicked up in advance of the next day's storm. It certainly hadn't been there when she'd left her house that morning. She slung her bag over her shoulder, jogging toward the door and momentarily forgetting to turn and see if Kurt was behind her, in her haste to get out of the cold.
He was right behind her, of course, moving just as quickly toward her door. As she struggled to unlock the door with shaking fingers, she felt him huddle close behind her, reaching around her on both sides and leaning forward enough for his forearms to rest against the door frame. She realized that he had pressed himself so close behind her because he was attempting to block the wind from her. If she'd turned around just then, they would have been just as close together as they'd been when they'd danced earlier that night, which may have seemed like an appealing idea except for the fact that she was fairly sure she was already partially frozen, so the only thing she could think about was getting inside, out of the wind.
"And that's why you need to be sure to have the right gear for this weather," he said as he closed the door behind him, both of them still shivering. She nodded, slightly sensitive to the subject of not having winter gear simply because of the reason that she didn't have it, but knowing that he was only stating a fact. The way the temperature was dropping out there, it was definitely going to be important for her to have more than what she had, even if it meant using something of Sarah's – or even Kurt's – for a few days and going out shopping next week, or, worst case, getting something tonight.
That thought took her back to the last time she'd been shopping, when she'd been with Patterson and Zapata. It had been quite a while ago now… more months than she was able to remember. The thought of going out shopping for anything never entered her mind anymore. After all, what was the point? As recently as that morning, she'd had nothing but an empty feeling, the complete lack of desire for any possessions, and therefore no need to even think about shopping. She had the basics, after all, and that was enough.
Therefore, obviously, since she hadn't imagined going shopping at all, she certainly hadn't thought that she'd have had any company on such an outing, before today. But after everything that had happened… maybe Patterson or Zapata, or both, would go with her, or maybe it would even be Kurt. The thought made her smile as she danced slightly from side to side, not wanting to take off her coat.
"I'm just going to leave my coat on while I grab my stuff," she told him, slipping off her shoes and heading upstairs with her small bag. Halfway up the stairs she turned around and looked like she wanted to ask him something, but said nothing.
"Nothing fancy," Kurt replied to the question she hadn't answered. "Comfortable. Whatever you have that's warm, obviously."
She couldn't help but smile, because he'd read her mind, just the way he used to. "Well that's good, because the only fancy thing I have is what I wore tonight," she told him.
"And I wouldn't mind seeing it again, but you'll feel overdressed if you wear it around my family," he grinned at her. "And besides, I don't think it counts as warm."
As she made a face at him, something else occurred to her. "Um, I guess I should ask when we're planning on coming back… So I know how much to bring?"
"What? You mean you don't want to go on an open-ended road trip to the middle of nowhere with someone who…" He paused then, and decided that it might be better not to try to describe himself with his less than flattering characteristics, since she'd already experienced so many of them. "Um, anyway…" he said, shaking his head and looking down after an awkward pause, during which they simply stared at each other, a slightly panicked look in both of their eyes, "that seems like a reasonable question."
Shaking her head slowly, she just waited for him to answer the question.
"The plan is to come back on the twenty-sixth at some point, which will be Monday. It's not usually a long drive, so whenever we get around to it… Though one of Sarah's texts said that they're expecting more snow out there over the next few days than the original forecast had said, so… You just never know with that kind of weather."
"So, we could get… stranded out there?" Jane asked, her eyes growing wide, and for a second he was afraid that she was going to change her mind. He, on the other hand, almost liked the idea of getting stranded somewhere in the snow with her…
Within seconds, he could tell from looking at her that she'd just had a thought that had amused her, because she was suddenly grinning at him. "Can you even go for that long without going to work?"
He scowled at her playfully, rolling his eyes. "For your information, I can. Now go get your stuff!" She laughed at him as she turned to walk up the rest of the stairs, and he shook his head as he watched her go. His next move was to walk back into her kitchen and check the contents of her refrigerator and cupboards, which were both shockingly empty. Of course, it was possible for a person not to have a lot of food on hand if they ordered take out frequently, but he knew that Jane wasn't one of those people.
Sighing and shaking his head at his discovery of the state of her kitchen, he could see that when they got back from Clearfield, there would have to be some grocery shopping happening immediately.
That's just another excuse for you to spend time with Jane, you know, the voice in his head observed. He caught himself smiling, because the observation wasn't wrong.
It's going to be an interesting few days, he thought to himself as he walked back toward the front door to see if she was ready to go. The day was certainly ending a lot better than it had started.