Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)
A/N: I've been trying to get these chapters posted so quickly, I've forgotten to mention how grateful I am to you all for reading and reviewing, but I appreciate every one of you! I have a lot of things still planned for these two, so there's lots of story left to come. :)
Kurt was now standing at the bottom of the stairs of Jane's safe house, just in front of the front door. He had heard only faint noises from upstairs, probably Jane walking around, but at that moment, he heard nothing. "How's it going, Jane?" he called.
"Um…" she replied, sounding frustrated. When she didn't elaborate, he climbed the steps to the second floor without a word, pausing at the door to her bedroom and leaning against the doorframe. He crossed his arms over his chest, and couldn't help but smile at her. Jane, for her part, was standing by her bed, glaring into a duffle bag that looked like it barely had anything in it. From the look on her face, he'd have thought that the contents had personally offended her.
"What's wrong?" he asked, trying not to make it obvious just how cute he found the look on her face. When she looked up at him he saw surprise, but mostly frustration, and he tried to force his face into a more serious expression, not wanting to frustrate her even more. After all, he didn't want to be on the receiving end of the glare that she was directing inside her bag.
Scowling at the duffle bag that sat in the middle of the bed once more and then sighing in exasperation, she sat down on the edge of the mattress. From where he stood, he could see a few items already inside the bag, but it didn't look like very many. Her forehead was creased as she frowned defiantly, and she leaned forward, letting her elbows rest heavily against her knees. "I don't have anything warm to pack," she finally said after several angry seconds, her head dropping to her chest and her eyes falling closed. She no longer looked angry, now she just looked sad.
Pushing himself up from the doorway where he'd been leaning, he smiled sympathetically as he walked towards her, his arms dropping to his sides. He sat down beside her on the edge of the bed, leaving only a few inches between them, and moved his right hand up to gently sit at the back of her neck, his arm sitting along her spine. Feeling her take a deep breath when his arm landed on her back, he squeezed her neck gently, gradually moving farther up and then back down. He could feel her calming down before he ever said a word, and after a few minutes she sat back up and simply leaned in his direction, her head falling against his shoulder for the third time that day.
"That's easy to fix," he said soothingly, as her head landed on his shoulder once again. "Plus, luckily for both of us, it just so happens that I have a sister who loves to mother me, loves to shop for me, and she's spent the past year doing exactly that. So I now have enough clothes, warm and otherwise, for way more than the two of us. We'll just pick up the warmer stuff when we get back to my place, and you can wear that this weekend. Okay?"
He was not about to deny that he liked the idea of her wearing his clothes. One day, the voice echoed somewhere in the back of his mind. It's been one day. Slow down.
It's been a hell of a lot longer than a day, he told the voice. Besides, she was always the exception anyway.
As frustrated as she had been a few minutes before, she felt the stress melting away even faster than it had come. After all, she couldn't help but smile at the thought of wearing his clothes... It was just another one of the many things between them that was definitely not supposed to happen after just one day. But who was she to argue? Because if that was the only reason to say no… well then there was no reason.
It hasn't been one day and you know it, the voice in her head pointed out. If anything, you guys move slower than glaciers, so don't start feeling like things are moving fast. Really, you're not.
"Okay," she said quietly, leaning back against his arm and letting him pull her closer, against his side. They sat that way for a minute, one that ended much too soon, when he said, "We should get going, so we both get some sleep before the drive. Who knows what kind of adventure it's going to be." She swore that she heard a grin in his voice, and when she sat up slowly and turned to look at him, she saw that she had been right. He was grinning at her, his arm still around her shoulders loosely.
"What?" she asked, unable to fathom what was making him look so happy.
"No guesses?" he asked teasingly. Shaking her head, she grimaced. It was strange how she could have put up such a brave, indestructible front for the past months, since she'd been back, and now suddenly today, she felt as though she was going to crack into a million pieces at any minute. This kind of emotion… it was exhausting.
"I wasn't really looking forward to this weekend. To Christmas as a whole, yes. To spending time with Sarah and Sawyer, absolutely. But to going back to Clearfield…?" His face became serious then, and he focused on a spot on the wall behind Jane as his mind returned to the prospect of going to his childhood home for the weekend. Even though he knew that Sarah thought it was important for him to say goodbye to his childhood demons, he felt as though he'd been doing just fine simply not confronting them all these years.
This is what you call 'doing fine?' the voice in his head asked mockingly. Please at least give yourself the courtesy of admitting that you haven't been doing fine. After all, look at your life. Until Jane came along, everything you did – every single thing – was because of what happened to Taylor twenty-five years ago. That's not exactly the picture of 'doing fine.'
Okay, he admitted to himself, maybe I'm not doing fine. But I've gone twenty-five years without facing them, and I don't see why I need to do it now.
He swore he heard his inner voice sigh pityingly, and then it said, So you don't have to have their company for the rest of your life, idiot.
"I've been dreading going back there. I know that Sarah thinks it will help, and after everything I've put her through over the years, she deserves for me not to fight her on it. So I gave in to this weird request of hers. But I really, really didn't want to go." Jane just nodded, interested in how he suddenly seemed to be the one pouring out his feelings to her. They'd suddenly switched roles, it seemed.
"And it's weird, maybe, but now thinking about going there with you," he finally focused on her again, meeting her eyes. "I don't know… I don't mind the idea. In some ways it feels…" He looked down in front of him and blinked several times, then once again looked back up at her. "It feels like that's how I can get the closure that Sarah thinks I can find."
"Because of… me?" she asked in surprise. "But… I've never even been there before…"
With a rush of affection for her, he smiled once again and just how much she underestimated her effect on him. Shaking his head, he replied, "I know, but that doesn't matter. I meant what I said… that day… on your voicemail…" Swallowing hard, he looked away, trying to remember his exact words. "That… when things happen to me, in my life... you're the first person I think about. And you always have been… as long as I've known you." He paused, knowing that it was probably a lot to take in, especially for Jane, who, sadly, seemed to think so little of herself. "I tried to do it without you, but… I discovered that it just doesn't really work. It never did, I just hadn't realized it yet."
When he looked back at her, her face was filled with confusion again. "It?" she asked quietly.
Come on, Jane, he thought. You have to get it through your head how much you mean to me.
Well then, do a better job of telling her – and better yet, showing her – than you did before today, and maybe she will, the voice replied. He knew that he deserved that, but it still stung a little.
"Me," he replied simply. "My life." She returned the smile shyly, shaking her head, about to protest once again, but he was faster. "I mean it," he said sincerely, looking into her eyes.
It didn't seem possible, but when she looked at him, she couldn't help but feel like he was being sincere about what he was saying. She knew that he wasn't a person to just say something for the sake of saying it, but still… Her brain just had trouble processing the concept of being that important to anyone. Even Kurt.
"Okay," she whispered, her eyes flicking down to her lap for a second, and then back up at him. Her smile widened then, and though she didn't want to move, she knew that she couldn't sit there all night. They had too much to do. Nodding and standing up, then turning around to look at her mostly empty bag, she frowned into it slightly.
"Okay, so," he said, suddenly all business. "You need a few basics at least. Like… underwear."
Giving him a look somewhere between a glare and a grin, she replied, "Alright, I'll be the first to admit that I never imagined when I woke up this morning that tonight you'd be asking me about my underwear… But since you did… Yes, that, at least, is packed."
Chuckling, he nodded and replied, "So, we're off to a good start, then," and went on to the next item on his mental list. "Toiletries?"
"Done."
"Socks?"
"Check."
"Pants?" he asked, then added, "Jeans, sweatpants… whatever…"
"Besides the ones I'm wearing, I have one of each." When he looked at her in surprise, she replied, just a little bit defensively, "That's all I have."
He nodded without a word, thinking that that couldn't possibly be all she'd ever had, before, especially knowing that she'd gone shopping with Patterson and Zapata… Which, again, meant that it was his fault that she now had almost nothing. It seemed like suddenly, after months of not thinking about any of this from her perspective, that was all he could do. Once again, he felt horrible.
Nothing you can do to change that now, he reminded himself. Just do better from now on. He certainly did intend to.
"Okay, what about… pajamas?" he asked.
"Well…" she began, "I have some, but they're not warm… But… better than nothing?"
Again, he nodded, then took out his phone to type a message to Sarah. Less than a minute later he looked back up and told her, "Sarah has some you can borrow, if you want." Jane just nodded, a half smile on her face. While she appreciated it, she also hated the fact that she had so little of her own.
"Let's see, what else…?" Kurt mumbled. "Long sleeves?" He knew she had long sleeved shirts, because it was all she'd been wearing for months.
"Not warm at all, but yes," she replied. "And one sweatshirt, and the jacket I'm wearing."
Her leather jacket, which is anything but warm, he thought. How has she made it this far through the season with only this much? he wondered.
Easy, the voice in his head replied helpfully, she's been freezing her ass off. And of course she doesn't complain, she probably just feels like it's what she deserves, because that's what you made her believe… and she knows it's still better than being with the CIA, so tells herself she's fine… The thought made him cringe. Not that she'd been spending much time outside lately, unless he was mistaken, but still…
Just do better from now on, he reminded himself. That's all you can do.
"Okay, well, like I said, I've got plenty of warm stuff. Sweaters, fleece, a few jackets… Hats, gloves… I wouldn't have any of it if Sarah hadn't lived with me for so long, but she did, so I do. I think we're set. Right? Am I forgetting anything?"
"I don't think so," she replied, shaking her head and then pulling her bag towards her. She zipped it up carefully and was about to hoist it onto her shoulder when Kurt beat her to it.
"Oh, but I can…" she started to protest in surprise. He was looking at her in amusement, even though she was frowning at him. "Kurt, it's… what are you doing? It's not heavy. I can carry it." She looked both completely confused and mildly frustrated with him as well.
But Kurt just shrugged. "I know," he replied simply. "But you don't have to." She just stared at him, not knowing how to respond. He watched her as she stood and watched him in confusion, shaking his head. His voice softened then, as he continued. "I know that we've been pretty horrible to you since…" He left that part unsaid, and continued, "But if you're that confused by someone doing one nice thing for you, then we… I… treated you even worse than I thought." He didn't think he could express how badly he felt for the fact that she now seemed to think so little of herself, but the feeling was like a gaping hole inside him, threatening to swallow him whole.
She was already shaking her head when he finished speaking, trying to protest, but he wasn't going to hear it. "Jane, you can say whatever you want, but it's the truth. You shouldn't have had to feel like you're all alone, especially after what you put yourself through to protect us – to protect me – and yet, that's exactly how we made you feel."
His face clouded over, and she wanted nothing more than to make him stop beating himself up. After all, what good would it do to punish himself for what had already happened, what they'd already somehow managed to get past? It wouldn't accomplish anything, of course. "But you're here now," she told him quietly. "What else can you do? We'd both like to have a time machine, but… it just doesn't work that way." She just shrugged. "Besides," she said thoughtfully, "If we changed the past, who knows if we'd have ended up here."
Just do better from now on, he told himself yet again.
He nodded at her reluctantly, thinking that if she could get past everything that had happened, that he certainly should be able to as well. Smiling at her, he just nodded, wondering how she did it. "Fair enough," he replied with a nod, "but I'm still carrying your bag."
Rolling her eyes at him, she shook her head and smiled, allowing herself to feel a still unfamiliar feeling – happiness. "Fine," she sighed dramatically, pretending to be upset, but grinning. "So let's go already." She walked towards the doorway and glanced behind her to see if he was following her, which he was.
"Don't worry, I'm right behind you," he told her, and she found herself reassured by this. Not that she didn't already know that he was coming with her, since they were going to his apartment, but she liked hearing it anyway.
At the bottom of the stairs, she paused by the door, taking a deep breath and thinking about how cold it was outside. She zipped up her jacket as far as it would go, then glanced around to make sure the lights were off in the rest of the house. Finally, she slowly reached for the doorknob.
"Hold on," he said, laying his hand on her arm. "Wait a second." He unzipped his jacket – a much warmer one than Jane's – partway, and unwound the scarf that he'd had around his neck, then turned towards her and began winding it around her neck instead.
"Wait, what are you—" Jane started, but Kurt cut her off.
"My jacket is much warmer than yours. I've got a few scarves back at my place," he said matter-of-factly, "so if you like that one, you can have it, or you can choose a different one. But for now, knowing how cold it is out there, I'm saying that you need to stay warm, and you're wearing it."
She looked at him, feeling warm inside simply from the fact that he cared enough to worry about her being cold. "I don't suppose telling you that I'm fine without it will do any good?" she asked half-heartedly as he finished winding the scarf around her neck, tugging at the ends with a grin and using them to pull her just a little bit closer as he hung onto them.
"Nope," he agreed, smiling back at her. "So don't bother." She shook her head slightly, not knowing what else to say. Then, as she stood and watched, he pulled a pair of black knit gloves out of his pockets, handing them to her. "And you can keep those, too," he told her, "because I think there's ten pairs in my apartment, maybe more."
For a few seconds, she couldn't move, simply stood and stared at him. This can't be real, she thought. She must have had one of those looks on her face, because he was grinning at her as if he was proud of himself, she noticed.
"Come on, put them on," he urged her. "Then we'll get out of here." Without a word, she put on the gloves, which were slightly warmed from being in his pockets.
"Are you sure?" she asked, overwhelmed.
"About what?" he asked her curiously. He didn't feel like he'd done anything deserving of the awe with which she was looking at him just then.
About what? she thought in shock. How could he possibly have no idea how much all this meant to her?
"About… all of it," she replied, emotion overflowing into her voice, making it hard to get the words out. For a second she thought she was going to cry, she was simply overcome with it all.
"Of course I am, Jane," he said, again feeling badly at her complete awe over something so small, guilt rising in him again.
Just do better from now on, he told himself yet again, pulling her in for a hug without even stopping to think about it. She relaxed into him, inhaling deeply and asking herself yet again whether she was sure that she wasn't dreaming.
"Alright, I keep saying let's go, and now I'm the one slowing us down," he chuckled near her ear.
"I wasn't in a rush anyway," she replied with a smile. He shook his head, leaning it against her and then suddenly forcing himself to lean back, dropping his arms from her slowly and zipping his jacket back up.
"Alright, let's get this over with," he told her. "Because it's only going to get colder." Her eyes widened slightly at the thought, and then she nodded, reaching for the doorknob again, ready with her keys in her gloved hand so that she could lock the door quickly.
"I'm going to make a run for the car, so I can start getting it warmed up," he told her. Nodding, she opened the door and he dashed past her outside, toward the car, stopping only to throw Jane's bag in the backseat. By the time she'd locked the door – noticing that it was much easier to do so with gloves on to fight the chill in the air – and made her way to the car, the doors were unlocked and Kurt had started the engine, though the heat hadn't quite kicked in yet.
The air inside the car didn't have the same bite, but it was still definitely not warm. Smiling at him, she pushed her keys back into her pocket, then rubbed her hands together. Kurt turned the heat up as high as it could go, and they both held their hands up in front of the vents, waiting for it to heat up. In less than a minute, Jane also noticed a strange sensation somewhere around her. It was warm, but a little bit unsettling at the same time…
"What… ummm…" she said nervously, looking around. Kurt chuckled quietly, which only made her immediately look up at him, perplexed.
"Heated seats," he said, "Is it too much?"
Understanding dawned on her, and she nodded. "Yeah, a little bit…" He hit a button with a picture that vaguely resembled a chair on it on the console in front of them, and she saw one of two yellow lights go out.
"Okay, give it a minute and see if that's better," he told her.
"Thanks," she replied in relief.
The drive back to his apartment didn't take long, and before she knew it, it was time to brave the cold again. They dashed for the door, and by the time they made it inside, both of them were once again wishing that they were dressed more warmly – but at least they'd made it back inside. It had definitely not been this cold that morning when they'd gotten dressed.
Walking through the lobby, Jane had a sense of déjà vu. Of course, she knew that she'd been there before, more than once, so maybe déjà vu wasn't the right term for it. In any case, it had been long enough since she'd been there that it was strange to be back. It was all just as she remembered it, which was both comforting and slightly uncomfortable at the same time. After all, so much had happened to her since the last time she'd set foot inside his apartment… so how did this place look exactly the same?
Halfway through the lobby she stopped, memories suddenly bombarding her. The last time she'd been there – had it been that game night when she was in the middle of the mess with Oscar…? She tried to remember… And then suddenly she saw flashes of all the things that had come after that… She saw Kurt, arresting her all over again, even though it hadn't even happened at his apartment, but at hers – or, the one that had been hers at the time… after that, she wasn't even sure what she was seeing, because her senses were simply overloaded.
Kurt had been walking close beside her, still moving quickly after being outside in the cold, so he was already a few steps past her when he realized that she had stopped.
Turning around, he looked confused for a second, and then seeing her stricken expression, he realized that something was wrong. "Jane?" he asked, walking back to where she stood, growing more concerned with each step. "Hey, what's wrong?" he asked, standing in front of her and trying to make eye contact. She stood still and looked down, taking deep breaths, appearing to be lost in her own thoughts – and not thoughts that she was happy to be having, that much was clear.
"Hey," he said gently, laying both of his hands on her arms, just above her elbows, and still trying to get her to look at him. "Are you okay?"
She didn't hear him at first, still stuck inside the memories that were assaulting her from every direction at once, but she began to feel the pressure of his hands on her arms, and it pulled her slowly out of her thoughts. Gradually, she realized that she was not inside any of those memories, as she had thought, and looked up to find Kurt studying her face, worry written across his. Blinking and looking at him with relief, she gulped a deep breath and leaned forward, letting herself simply fall against him. Her eyes were already squeezed tightly closed before her head made contact with his collarbone, at which point he could no longer see her face.
This whole letting her guard down was a scary thing, and certainly not easy. To her dismay, now that she was no longer pushing all of her feelings down so hard inside her and denying their existence, it was as if almost anything could trigger a wave of emotions that could overwhelm her in seconds.
You were long overdue for a breakdown, she told herself. You're just making up for lost time.
Fantastic, she thought sarcastically.
His arms went around her as soon as he saw her leaning forward. Obviously, something had set her off… so what was it? "Hey," he said soothingly, giving up on getting her to answer for the moment, and simply working on getting her out of her own head. She was shaking, he noticed, and he put one hand on her back and one on the back of her head, as he had earlier, his fingers in her hair, moving them slowly. She was hugging him tightly, as if she was afraid that he was going to try to get away, so he tried to project the calmest, most soothing version of himself that he could.
"Ssshhhh," he said into her ear, as he had done on other occasions when she'd been upset. It was a few minutes before her breathing became less ragged and he could no longer feel her shaking. She leaned back and then, slightly awkwardly, took a step backwards, standing unsteadily on her own, and swiped at her tear-stained cheeks as she looked at the ground.
"Sorry," she mumbled, refusing to meet his eyes.
"Jane," he said in the same low voice that was always so effective at calming her down. He waited until she looked up at him once again before he spoke, and less than a minute later, her curiosity got the best of her. He didn't say anything else. Instead, his eyes asked the question for him, and hers answered with a heartbreaking look.
Even knowing what she's been through, he thought, it's so easy to forget how badly scarred she is emotionally from everything. She pulls herself together like a completely functional person most of the time, so it's easy to forget just how badly she's hurting.
She's probably doing that on purpose, he realized, and she probably has been for a long time now. What does it say about you that you just noticed now?
He felt the guilt beginning to creep in again, and he tried to keep his face from showing it. This was not the time for him to think about himself, after all. There was no time for a pity party. This was the time for him to think about her.
Just do better from now on, he told himself. It seemed to have become his mantra in a very short time.
Slowly, he reached toward her and wrapped the arm that did not have her duffle bag over it around her shoulders, turning and propelling them both toward the elevators. He felt her arm slowly move along his lower back, even through his jacket, and he tugged her just a little tighter. He simply could not reconcile what he knew – that if he had acted differently, she would not have been tortured by the CIA – with what he felt – that he would move heaven and Earth to keep her safe. Yes, he felt it now, but it was too little, too late. He had let them take her, and he hadn't done enough to save her. She'd had to escape on her own. It was a wonder that she let herself be near him at all.
Which is why it has taken so long for it to happen, the voice in his head reminded him. You didn't just suddenly end up here. It's been a while building up to this. Just keep doing what you've been doing. Nothing you can do about the past now.
He knew that he couldn't let himself go down this path with his thoughts, because it only led to dark places. Places he didn't want to go, especially not with Jane right there beside him, needing him to be clearheaded. Besides, this was Christmas weekend, and somehow – though he still didn't quite understand how he'd gotten so lucky – he was going to be spending the entire thing with Jane. Sure, he had to go and say goodbye to the ghosts of his past, but suddenly it didn't seem as daunting, knowing that he wouldn't be doing it alone.
In the elevator, he kept his arm around her shoulders, unwilling to let her go unless that was what she wanted. And judging from the way she was leaning into him, her arm still wound tightly around his lower back, that was not what she wanted. This suited him perfectly fine. In this way, they maneuvered themselves as one unit to his door, where he took out his keys from his jacket pocket and unlocked it.
When he opened the door to reveal his apartment, for some reason Jane was surprised to find looked exactly the way it had the last time she'd been there, aside from the small differences that went along with his sister and nephew no longer living with him. She was also surprised to find that being in his apartment didn't bother her, despite what had just happened in the lobby.
Once they were inside, Kurt turned to close the door and then hesitantly dropped his arm from her shoulders so that they could take off their jackets.
Even without their jackets, the apartment felt warm and toasty after the freezing winds outside, and the lights cast a warm glow around the room, just as she remembered it always having. Kurt had hung his jacket up in the closet, and as Jane finished slowly pulling hers off as well, he simply lifted it out of her fingers, hanging it up beside his before she could protest.
"Thanks," she mumbled, slowly walking further into the room. She still couldn't get over how it all looked the same after all this time. How could it? Everything about her had been turned upside down, in all the worst possible ways. She felt almost irrationally annoyed with his apartment – which she understood didn't make any sense whatsoever – but how dare it remain the same while her life had been in such turmoil?
Taking a deep breath, she walked to the couch to sit down at the far left end, curling up and tucking her legs into the corner behind her. There was a soft, gray blanket that had been draped over the back couch pillows beside her, and she pulled it down, draping it over her. It was the same couch she'd sat on before, other times when she'd been there, and she didn't know whether to be comforted by the familiarity or, as she had been a minute before, angry at the inanimate object's ability not to have been torn apart by the past few months, as she felt that she had been.
I'm losing my mind, she thought. I'm really losing my mind.
You're not losing your mind, the familiar, calm voice in her head said. You're processing. Big difference. Just give it a minute.
Closing her eyes and breathing deeply, she tried to do just that… to give all of it a minute. She'd almost forgotten how to calm herself down without simply pushing her feelings down inside her and telling herself they didn't exist. She'd been doing that for so long, she had to make a conscious effort not to do that. This was definitely going to take some practice.
She was sitting there, curled up in the corner, when he walked over and sat down beside her, leaving a little bit of space between them, but less than a foot. When she felt the couch shift beside her, she opened her eyes and turned towards him. She did her best to smile as he handed her a mug with steam rising from it, which she took gratefully. Her smile was weak, however, and it didn't quite reach her eyes.
"Thanks," she said as she curled her hands around the cup, thinking how good the warmth felt.
"You're welcome," he said, picking up another cup from the coffee table in front of them. "Though I should tell you, it's decaf. Sorry, but I do want you to sleep at least a little bit tonight."
"Haha," she said, taking a small sip to check the temperature. It was perfect, and she realized that he still remembered what she liked in her coffee. This made her smile for real, and she couldn't help but feel silly that something so small could make her feel so happy.
But then again, what do I have in my life besides little things? she asked herself, her smile dimming slightly. Still, she supposed that she had to take the good where she could find it, and she tried not to think too hard about what it said about her life. After all, it could be so much worse. She could have been sitting at home on her own couch, alone, right now. Instead, she was here, with him. She could have still been with… No, I'm not going there, she told herself with finality.
He turned to face her on the couch, sipping his coffee, glad to be holding something warm, and glad to see Jane focusing on him, and not lost in her thoughts. He knew what it was like to be stuck inside his own head, and he also knew that she had a lot more trauma to draw her in that he did. They sat that way on the couch, defrosting, and just looking at each other for a few minutes before either of them spoke.
"Do you want to talk about what happened downstairs?" he asked her gently.
She could tell from looking at him that if she said no, she didn't want to talk about it, he would respect that and not push her. It wasn't that she didn't want to tell him, exactly, but she hesitated as she tried to think of what to say.
"I guess…" she began slowly, looking away from him. "Coming back here… I was just overwhelmed, and once it started, it just wouldn't stop. Out of nowhere, suddenly I was just reliving everything one after another… I mean, this is the first time I've been here since… everything…"
He hadn't even thought about that – the fact that the last time she'd been there, they had both been very different people. What they had each known about their own lives, their own realities, and especially, about each other, had been very different as well. It was hard to conceive of now, and he didn't like to – didn't like to think about the way so many things had gone so very wrong all at once.
Nodding slowly, he took another sip of his coffee while he thought about what she'd said. He watched her, wondering if she was going to continue.
"I don't know why it happened downstairs," she added in a small voice, "and not when I walked in here…" Only then did she look at him, looking confused and sad, maybe even a little scared.
She had a very good point, one that he'd never stopped to consider. By bringing her back here, he'd triggered a lot of things she obviously didn't want to remember. It had simply never occurred to him, but now that it did, he felt like an insensitive jerk.
His right elbow was propped up on the cushion on the back of the couch, and he shifted his coffee cup into his left hand, then let his elbow fall down along the back of the couch toward her, his fingertips just reaching her shoulder, resting on it gently.
"I'm sorry, Jane, I'd forgotten that you hadn't been here since… everything happened," he said quietly, feeling terrible.
She shook her head immediately. "No, I'd forgotten, too," she replied, scooting to her left just slightly, towards him, so that his hand rested farther up onto her shoulder. Not needing more encouragement than that, his fingers started moving slowly over the fabric of her shirt that covered her shoulder as she sipped her coffee. Slowly but surely, she smiled.
"Is it… weird? To be back here?" he asked, slightly concerned. The last thing she needed after everything she'd been through was something else that made her uncomfortable, especially because of him, again.
He looks so worried, she thought as she looked at him, the smile growing on her face at just the thought that he was so concerned about her – and not for the reasons that she had once assumed – because she was important for the mission of taking down Sandstorm. When the FBI had brought her back with them – dragged her back, as she'd considered it then, she had been convinced that this was the only reason why they'd shown any concern for her at all – which hadn't been much. But looking back, she doubted that that was all it had been, even then… Even if it had, she knew for sure that that wasn't the case anymore, and that was enough. After all, it had to be enough.
Shaking her head, she shifted a little closer to him still, eliminating almost all of the space, so that his fingertips now reached the cushion slightly past the middle of her back. He let his fingers rest against the fabric that covered her back, waiting for her to speak.
"It was weird when you opened the door, and then for the first few seconds, but after that… I don't know. It just wasn't anymore. It's… like I remember it, but… better." He smiled, and he was going to tell her that he was glad, but she started speaking again.
"The thing that was weird was when I sat down here, and I was thinking… how much the same it all looked. And it was nice that it was so familiar… but then I felt so…" she inhaled slowly, trying to find the words, and exhaled just as slowly. "I felt so angry, that with all of the horrible things that had happened in the time since I was last here, and yet everything here looked the same." She sighed heavily, frustrated.
"And I know that it doesn't make any sense, but I just…" she started, but stopped, shaking her head and sighing yet again, looking down at her lap.
"It makes sense," he told her quietly. "I feel that way sometimes, mostly at work, watching the agents on other teams. I don't really know them, so it's not fair of me, because I'm sure that there are plenty of things that they deal with that I don't know about, but…" He paused, looking at her, but thinking of the best way to say what he was trying to say. "You get angry that everything else, everyone else seems to have just continued on with their lives, stayed the same, while you endured something horrible… And I can't even imagine, in your place—" he broke off, shaking his head.
She nodded, thinking that he had summarized it pretty well. "And that's hard, too, because you know that those other people – or, your couch, as I was directing my anger and frustration at–" At that she looked down and smiled, knowing that she sounded ridiculous, but that at the same time, that he would understand. "You know that it wasn't their fault that you went through this horrible thing that they didn't… They were just living their lives… or, you know, being a couch."
At that, she felt the sensation of his fingers moving slowly on her back, up to her shoulder and squeezing slightly. Looking back at him, suddenly needing to see in his face that he understood what she was saying, she saw the look that seemed to surprise her every time – because how had she possibly deserved to see it again after everything she'd done to him? It was the look that had melted her heart from the beginning, and for a second, it took her breath away.
But she wasn't done talking, so, bolstered by the encouragement in his eyes, she continued. "And yet… why do they get to come through that same period of time unscathed? Perfectly fine, as far as you can tell, anyway? It's just… It's not fair. And I know I sound like a whiny four year old saying that, but…" She stopped, having finally gotten to the end of her train of thought.
"But you're not wrong, Jane," he told her quietly. "And what has happened to you, all of it, from the very beginning of a very young Remi, none of it was fair. A lot less fair that what happens to most people. Unfortunately, we can't undo it. The best we can do is to try to tip the balance." When she looked back at him, it was obvious that she didn't understand what he meant. Smiling at her warmly, he added, "The things that have happened in your life have been pretty…"
He searched for the right word. How exactly did you sum up Jane's life in one word? "…unthinkable," he said finally. "It's going to take a while to balance it all out, but I think it's possible. Now you just need a whole lot of things to go right, for a change. It doesn't erase what's happened in the past… we can't do that."
She was already nodding. No, of course we can't, she thought. "I know," she said aloud.
"Though if I could, I'd do it in a second. No matter what it took." Looking into his eyes just then, she could see that he meant it.
"Me, too," she said, smiling sadly, then looking down at her hands.
They sat that way for a long, quiet minute, until she felt him squeezing her shoulder once again, at which point she finally scooted the rest of the way toward him and leaned the side of her head against his chest, a now empty coffee cup between her restless hands. His right hand, which had been on her shoulder, wrapped the rest of the way around her and pulled her closer to him, while his left hand, having already set down his own empty mug, took hers from her and put it beside the other one on the coffee table, then wrapped around her fidgeting hands.
They sat that way, close together on the couch, for a while, neither one speaking, both lost in their thoughts. Is it possible, she wondered, for things to actually go right? Based on past experience, she would have said no… And yet, based on where she was at that second, she would have said the opposite. She felt her eyelids growing heavy, and she allowed her eyes to close. It had been a long time since she'd felt that secure… Actually, she thought fleetingly, I don't think I ever have…
Not that I can remember, anyway.