Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :) Also, once again, I do not own any song lyrics, including the ones in this chapter. They still belong to Bob Dylan.
A/N: MonkeyPajamas, I absolutely loved your version of this idea (which I wont name here and give away the plot of the chapter before it even starts), and lately our fics have been working together, but it was too perfect for the occasion not to include an alternate version.
It took a long time to work their way through the piles of presents, even with their small family, but eventually everything under and around the tree had been opened. There were multiple bags of torn wrapping paper, each filled to capacity, along the back wall of the living room. Once again, the Wellers had outdone themselves. Jane noticed that though Sarah had hinted that it was Kurt who went a little overboard with the Christmas presents as some sort of possible overcompensation, she seemed to have done the same. Having simply sat and enjoyed the warmth and happiness that surrounded her like a perfect bubble, Jane had absolutely no complaints.
One of Sawyer's presents had been some sort of remote controlled something or other, which had come from Sarah. She'd just told him that he could go outside and fly it as soon as he took a shower and got dressed, and she was both surprised and pleased when he agreed to these simple conditions easily, jumping up and running for the stairs.
"Wow, I guess I should've gotten him a drone-thing years ago," Sarah commented, shaking her head and standing up. "I'm off to get ready, too." Pausing in the doorway, she stopped and smiled at Kurt for a second before turning around and heading upstairs.
The chaos and noise of presents had been every bit as overwhelming as Kurt had hinted, so it was nice to just sit in the quiet and breathe in and out. No longer having a reason to face the Christmas tree, Jane turned herself around 180 degrees, until she faced the fire place, then leaned her side against Kurt once again, though they were now facing opposite directions. Chuckling, he turned around to match her position, and for a minute, they both stared into the fire, enjoying the sensation of warmth on their faces, though missing it on their backs.
Then, slowly, out of the corner of her eye, she saw him ease his hand carefully in his left pocket, capturing something between his fingers and then drawing his hand back out, now closed into a tight fist so that she couldn't see what he was holding. He seemed to hesitate then, for a few seconds, before turning slightly towards her and clearing his throat.
"So, I have something for you…" Her mouth was open to protest, despite their earlier conversations on the subject, but when she saw his face, she decided to hold off. He was… No. He can't be nervous… Why would he be? she wondered curiously, and a little nervously.
"I don't really know… Just… When you see it, just hear me out, okay?" He was looking at her worriedly, and she couldn't imagine what he could be giving her that would require this kind of nervous anticipation.
What exactly does he think I'm going to say, or do, she wondered. And… why?
Looking back at him, she was also now more than just a little worried about whatever was about to happen, but she nodded in agreement.
"Okay," she replied slowly, wondering exactly what was happening. This had been the perfect day so far… so why did she feel like this was the catch? That this was where it all went wrong…
She watched as he held out his hand, fist still closed around the contents, and waited for her to extend hers to meet him. Slowly, she held out her hand, palm side up, positioning it directly under his and waited, finding that she was nervous. Looking up at him slowly, she wondered what was such a big deal.
Slowly, his hand opened and something metallic fell out against her skin – a sold shape, and then a long, thin "string" made of similar material. Immediately, she was afraid that she knew what she held in her hand, but waited until he drew his hand back and she could see the object before she reacted. Just as she'd thought, it was the necklace… the one he'd ripped from her neck the night that he'd arrested her. The one that hadn't ever been hers, not really.
Suddenly, she couldn't breathe. She dropped the necklace as if it had bitten her, onto the carpet in front of them.
"Jane," he said pleadingly. "Listen to me. Please?"
When she looked up at him, he couldn't help but notice the sadness in her eyes. He could understand why, of course, and this was why he'd been afraid of her reaction. There were at least two reasons that he could think of why getting the necklace back would be hard for her. First, when he'd given it to her, they'd both thought that she was Taylor. As she'd told him bitterly months ago, her life had been much easier when she had "been" Taylor. The necklace had belonged to Taylor's mother, and now that they both knew that she wasn't Taylor… He still saw it as hers, but he wasn't sure that she would.
The second reason… well, that one was harder to swallow. It had been obvious to him that she had loved that necklace. It had been one of her only true possessions – not bought for her by the FBI, but given to her by him personally. It wasn't vanity, but simply knowing her the way he did, to know that that was why it was important to her. Of course, she hadn't seen it since the night that he'd arrested her. He hadn't seen it since the night he'd arrested her. He'd taken it back from her in a none too friendly way, and he wasn't proud of himself for it.
No, she had every right to be looking at him the way she was now – with a mixture of fear and hurt and defensiveness and… he didn't pretend that he could know everything that she was feeling. And yet, even so, it seemed important to give it back to her. It represented things that hurt, but it represented so much more than that. If only he could find the right words, make her understand…
He took a deep breath, determined to somehow get it right, no matter how many tries it took. He'd rehearsed the words in his head ever since Sarah had pulled him into the other room before breakfast and given it back to him. This was the moment of truth.
Letting the necklace lie on the floor in front of them for the moment, he slowly reached for her hands. While he wanted to blurt everything out at once, he forced himself to move slowly, to take them tentatively in his. After all, no matter how well things had been going with the two of them, it had only been a few days, and he knew that he'd just made her feel very vulnerable again by producing the necklace so suddenly.
He didn't know the right place to start his explanation, but he picked the part that he thought made the most sense. "After that night," he said softly, looking at her even though she wasn't looking at him, "Apparently I threw the necklace into an envelope and left it on Sarah's dresser. I don't even remember doing it. She said she found it the next day, that I had written, 'Keep this' on the front of the envelope… She knew what it was, and by then she knew what had happened, so… she did. She kept it. I don't know why she had it with her on this trip – she didn't get a chance to explain that part to me yet – but when she pulled me into the other room this morning, she just handed it to me and said, 'I just thought you might want this back.' I'd forgotten that she had it."
Knowing that he had said a lot already, he stopped there, waiting for her reaction. Her eyes were closed now, he saw, and she was breathing very deliberately, as if it required concentration to be sure she did it right. His chest ached once again, knowing that his words, and the fact that he'd handed her the necklace, were causing her so much pain. That he was once again responsible for causing her pain.
"I want you to have it back, Jane. It's yours."
In her mind, she was replaying the whole scene. The one where he'd arrested her. Handcuffed her. And then, just before leading her outside to his waiting SUV, maybe he'd seen the glint on the back of her neck, or maybe he'd just remembered… but he'd pushed her toward the first empty wall he saw, pressed his knee into her back to keep her steady, and, with fingers shaking so badly that even she could feel it, he'd slowly grasped the chain between his fingers and then, without warning, had pulled it off of her as fast and as hard as he could.
She'd gasped in pain and surprise, but she had known then that he wasn't listening to her. After all, he'd already blocked out all of her attempts to explain. The chain on the necklace had broken, but not before leaving her with a stinging, burning line across her neck, a reminder for days afterwards of what had been taken from her – of what had never been hers in the first place, she had reminded herself over and over again.
Of course, the line hadn't been serious enough to leave a scar, and the pain was far more emotional than it had been physical. Besides, what she'd gone through not long after that, when the CIA had taken her, had been so much worse than the pain of having a necklace ripped off of her, the short-lived pain on her neck had easily faded into the past, something not even worth remembering. But now that that necklace lay in front of her on the carpet, reminding her of everything that had happened, now she remembered it all, in living color and vivid detail.
There were so many reasons why she didn't want that necklace, why she shouldn't want it. And yet… at the same time, there was an ache inside her chest that told her that she did want it, despite everything.
After all, it had come from Kurt.
She had to explain to him why she couldn't accept it, and maybe in doing so, she would explain it to herself. Picking the first, most logical reason she could think of why she couldn't accept the necklace, she finally opened her eyes and looked up at him. Before she could speak, however, she was surprised to register the depth of the pain she saw in his eyes.
It reminds him of that time, too, she realized. And yes, technically he was the one who arrested you, but you know very well what the circumstances were. Thinking of that day reminds him of the pain that he was in mentally then… it was excruciating. It doesn't excuse his behavior, but you're past that part…
Aren't you? Suddenly, she had to confirm with herself that she was past what had happened. If you weren't, you wouldn't be here, after all.
Looking down for a second to break the hold his pained look had taken over her, she slowly brought her eyes back up to him as she began to speak. "That's… that's not mine. It's Taylor's," she told him simply, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "You gave it to me because you thought I was Taylor."
He knew that he had to choose his words carefully, because she wasn't completely wrong. The necklace, after all, had belonged to Emma Shaw, Taylor's mom. And yet, that was not at all why he'd given it to her.
Squeezing her hands gently, then shifting them so that his thumbs could trace slow lines against her palms, he began speaking slowly. "I cannot deny that the necklace belonged to Emma Shaw. I cannot deny that we all thought that you were Taylor when I gave it to you… but even when I thought you were Taylor, you were always Jane to me. The way I felt about you then… the way I feel about you now…none of it is or was because I thought you were Taylor. I gave that necklace to you – Jane – and I had no right to take it back."
"You had every right," she said quickly, shaking her head and suddenly trying to pull her hands back from him. "I wasn't her." This, of course, only made him grasp them tighter.
"Jane—" he started, but she cut him off.
"Emma Shaw was not my mother. We're not even from the same country. That necklace was meant for her daughter. I'm not her." She had managed to wrestle her hands away from him – when he'd seen how hard she was fighting to pull them back, he had decided to let them go for the moment, thinking that he didn't want his attempts to backfire. After all, he'd reminded himself, a strong reaction from her was understandable.
"Jane," he said, trying again. "I think that if Emma Shaw knew the very, very long story of Taylor, and you, and me… I think that she would want you to have it."
But Jane drew her knees up in front of her, retreating inside herself as far as she could as she wrapped her arms around her knees with an iron grip. "I impersonated her daughter," she whispered. "I didn't just impersonate her daughter, but I did it with the intention of deceiving the FBI. I used her daughter as a tool to get to you, without any regard for how manipulative that was, or how it would hurt you… I don't deserve her necklace. I don't even deserve forgiveness."
He watched with a sinking heart as the progress that they had made over the past months all seemed to melt away in the blink of an eye, leaving only the hurt she had suffered in its wake. The facts were that not only had he arrested her after she had done what she thought was the best she could do when faced with impossible situation after impossible situation, in order to protect the people she cared about, but that she had been brutally tortured for months after that. She'd been made to think that her life meant nothing, and then, when she'd finally escaped and subsequently been caught, had been forced to return to the FBI, she'd been led to believe that not a single one of them cared even a little bit about her until it was almost too late to salvage any of their relationships.
She had every reason to break down just then, as far as he was concerned. The surprising thing was that it hadn't happened sooner, really. But this time, he was there, and he was going to build her back up, no matter how long it took.
The fact that the way she saw everything – in black and white, with herself as the villain – wasn't all that had happened didn't matter at that moment. Watching her then, he could see from her face and her body language that she had just stripped away all of the healing she had managed to achieve, and returned herself to a place in her mind that she went to when everything hurt.
Maybe the necklace was a bad idea… the voice in his head suggested. However, he remained steadfast in the belief that it wasn't. This was simply another manifestation of how much baggage was left for them to work through. On the surface, in their interactions over the past few days, things had looked relatively calm, but inside both of them – Jane especially – there was still a lot of pain. But they'd gotten this far, and what she needed now was to see that he wasn't going to back away, wasn't going to let her simply retreat and that she didn't have to face her demons alone.
Retreating may have felt to her like the safer option when the pain was so overwhelming, but he'd made the mistake of letting her do so once already, and he'd almost lost her for good because of it. There was no way he was going to let that happen again. Her doubts, her immediate assumption that she had to protect herself, even from him, those doubts were the price he was still paying for his mistakes, but he was determined to make it up to her. He knew better now. Now he could see her for what she really was… someone so loyal, so good, that she would sacrifice herself for people who had treated her like dirt simply because she felt that she owed them a debt.
But there would be no self-sacrificing on his watch.
She'd made herself into such a tiny ball, wrapping her arms around her knees as tightly as she could, that it was easy to simply lift her into his lap. Initially she stiffened, as though she was bracing herself for a blow, and this made him wince. Instead, he simply wrapped his arms around her tightly, trying to ignore the fact that he felt her begin to shake in his arms, and concentrated on rocking her back and forth slowly. As he did so, he spoke softly into her ear.
"See, that's just not going to work on me, Jane. You seem to have mistaken me for someone who doesn't know you, who doesn't know just how much you like to take the weight of the world on your shoulders to protect others, no matter what it means for you, but you can't fool me. I know you, better than I think you want to admit. I know that right now, this moment, you've somehow convinced yourself all over again that there's some debt that you can't repay… That you're not worthy. But we talked about this in the car, while we were working on not freezing to death – remember?" He paused to take a breath, then continued.
"It was your idea, in fact, our deal. The one where we agreed that we're even. We both did terrible things, but that does not make us terrible people. You don't get to take the blame for the things that Remi did, because you are not Remi. You are Jane, and you're not any guiltier than I am. You've been a victim of all this, too. And if you need me to remind you of that, if you need to hear it a hundred times, then I'll tell you a hundred times."
He paused then, not sure that any of this was getting through to her, but hoping that it was. He felt a wave of desperation wash over him. She had to believe him, because he could not conceive of what he would do if he couldn't fix this. The idea that she wouldn't give him a chance to help her… No.
"Because I'm not going away," he added in a whisper, his voice breaking at the end.
He heard noise upstairs, the voices of Sarah and Sawyer talking to each other animatedly, and he just hoped that Sarah would keep up her end of the bargain to keep Sawyer busy for a while, outside with his new drone. When he'd decided to give Jane the necklace, he hadn't expected quite this kind of a reaction from her, but he had anticipated that they might need some time alone, and Sarah had promised that they would have it.
Looking down at her to assess her condition, he was fairly sure that her arms were beginning to loosen around her knees, though they were still wrapped around herself, as if she was protecting herself from something. That was okay. After everything that she'd been through, he couldn't help but feel like these kind of major breakdowns were absolutely to be expected. Not because he wanted her to have them, of course, but because a person could only hold her level of pain in for so long – even as strong as she was. He didn't want he to hold it all in anymore, but it was exactly what she tended to do, being as stubbornly independent as she had always been, so he wanted her to get it all out.
Thinking that what he was doing – simply holding onto her and talking softly – seemed to be slowly working, he decided to continue, and tried to inject a little bit of humor into his words at the same time. Things were serious enough, after all.
"Also," he said, resuming his steady flow of what he hoped were calming words, "you seem to have confused me with someone who gives up. If you haven't heard, I'm really, really stubborn. Which yes, you are, too. We have that in common, but I think my track record wins. After all, who else do you know who has ever gone after the same goal for twenty-five years? Doing something like that either makes a person a major dumbass, or just really, really determined."
He thought maybe he sensed a change in her somehow when he said that, some kind of recognition of his attempt at humor, but he knew that he could have been imagining it. He probably had imagined it. Still, he liked to think that she was tuned into his voice enough to be processing what he was saying. He knew that he could be a dumbass sometimes, after all. He'd spent a lot of time being a dumbass in the past few months.
Ever since he'd lifted her onto his lap, which had been a surprise to her, and pulled his arms around her, she'd felt like she was watching the whole thing from outside her body. Even though her eyes were clamped shut as hard as she could squeeze them, she just knew what the scene looked like, right down to the details. She wanted to tell the woman that Kurt was holding onto so tightly, and speaking to so gently, that it was going to be okay. She wanted to tell her that this was obviously the face of a man who meant what he said. But she wasn't ready to be that woman again yet, and to let herself believe those things.
Instead, she simply listened to the soothing sound of his voice, hearing his words but only slowly tuning back into what he was telling her. As she did begin processing his words again, little by very little, she felt herself begin to relax.
"You know what the messed up part about that is?" he was talking about himself, and the transition from being considered a dumbass to the much nicer sounding really, really determined for his single-minded devotion to what everyone else had considered a lost cause for twenty-five years. He hadn't said that the cause was finding out what happened to Taylor, but of course, he hadn't needed to. What the cause was hadn't been his point, anyway. "Everyone assumes that you're the dumbass until you can actually prove that you were right all that time. Trust me, I only recently got to move from dumbass to really, really determined. But when it comes down to it, it doesn't matter to me what anyone else believes or thinks or says, not really, because when I believe in something, in someone, when I know in my gut that I'm right, there is nothing anyone can say that will deter me."
He paused, glancing at her and seeing that she was shaking a little bit less, and continued. "You can ask the rest of the team if you want to try to tell me that you don't remember that much yourself… though I know that you've seen the evidence of this plenty of times. You know what a pain in the ass I can be… admit it." Smiling just the tiniest bit at his own attempt at humor, again at his own expense, he was delighted when he felt her arms loosen and her hands begin to unclasp, felt her finally allow herself to lean into him. He felt his heart swell with affection for her, and could only hope that at some point, she might understand just how important she was to him. He was only just beginning to understand this himself.
"So when I tell you that I want you to have that necklace back, that you are absolutely worthy of it, no matter what has changed since the last time I gave it to you… you're not going to convince me otherwise," he said firmly. "If you don't want it, that's different. And I would understand if that's the case…" He felt her move for the first time then, shaking her head against his chest, where she was leaning.
Smiling fondly, he moved his right hand to the back of her head, fingers threaded through her hair, his arm supporting her back. His voice dropped back to a whisper then. "I know that I'm the one who just brought up our agreement, that we said that we're even, and I meant it. Even so, I can still tell you again that I'm sorry for taking it back. I won't do it again, no matter what. Okay? And I know that the words I'm saying are only that – words. And you need more than just words. You need time, and you need me to show you that I mean what I'm saying. That's what I'm going to do. And…" he took a deep breathe, "for what it's worth, I don't feel like I'm any worthier of forgiveness than you feel like you are."
Her head moved off of his chest and he tilted his head back to look at her then, as she looked at him for the first time since he'd handed her the necklace. How could he possibly think that it was the same thing? she wondered. And yet, from the pained look on his face, she could see that he did.
He picked up the necklace in his left hand and held it in his open palm, and they both sat and just looked at it silently. Keeping her eyes on the necklace, she leaned her head against his chest and sighed, her breath catching in her throat.
"I've seen you reaching for it, unconsciously," he told her quietly. "The last few months, since you've been back… I don't know if you noticed you were doing it." She shook her head against his chest once again, still staring at the necklace, not saying a word. "I want you to have it, Jane. If you want it. It's as simple as that."
She put her right hand up to where he was holding the necklace, his arm resting in front of her. Reaching out slowly with her index finger, she traced the thin chain, her finger brushing against the skin of his palm here and there, leaving a trail of what felt to him like sparks across his hand in its wake.
"It's not broken?" she asked quietly, in surprise. "I expected it to be broken, because…" Her left hand went to her neck, to the place where she'd had a bright red gash from when he'd ripped the necklace off of her, and he felt his heart breaking all over again.
"It was," he whispered. "Sarah… said she got it fixed." She just nodded.
Holding his breath, he continued to hold his hand there, as her finger wound its way from one end of the chain to the other. When she'd reached the beginning again, her hand slowly opened and lowered itself over his, closing over the necklace, with her fingers curled around his hand. He closed his fingers around her hand then as well, their fingers interlocking with the necklace in between. Kurt leaned his right cheek against the top of her head, squeezing her hand gently.
"It feels like…" she sighed heavily. "Every time I think I'm doing better, something happens to remind me that it's never going to be better. Like there's just too much…" Her breathing became quick and shallow, as if she was starting to panic. "It's like… everything reminds me of something that hurts." She squeezed her eyes shut again, and felt a few stray tears on her cheeks.
Traitors, she thought furiously at her tears. I told you not to do that.
"Hey," he said, his right hand leaving the back of her head and winding around her tightly again, his left hand holding securely to her right with the necklace still clasped between them. "Don't think like that. I told you on the first day, the first time I dropped you off at your first safe house, that it was going to be okay. I still believe that. It is going to get better." She nodded her head quickly – too quickly – the way she did when she wanted him to believe what she was saying even though she didn't believe it herself.
They heard Sarah and Sawyer's voice by the front door, and he felt her tense, as they waited to see if they were going to come closer. However, a moment later they heard the front door open, then close again, and Sawyer's distant yelps of delight as they went out into the chilly day.
Jane relaxed against him once more, relieved that they still had more time alone. His cheek pressed against the top of her head. "Take it one day – no, one hour – at a time. One minute, if that's what it takes. You're doing fine. Better than fine. You're a survivor, Jane." He paused for a second, thinking about everything she'd survived, even the parts that made him wince, wishing he could've been there to protect her. "I don't know anyone else who could have endured so much and still come through it all so strong. I know that you're going to be okay. And I know you like to tell yourself that you have to do it alone… but that has to stop. You don't. Never again. Okay?" he asked. He'd finally run out of words and he waited nervously for her reply.
"Okay," she replied quietly. His cheek was leaned against her head, so he couldn't see her face just then, but he swore he heard a smile – at least a little one – in her voice. Slowly, then, he felt her squeeze his hand and then flip it over, so that her hand was on the bottom and his was on top. Her fingers loosened around his, and he let his unclasp gradually from around her hand as well. She spread out her fingers, holding them straight out while keeping her hand still, so that when he lifted his hand away, seeing what she was trying to do, the necklace sat on her palm. She stared at it as he leaned back far enough to see her face in profile, her expression telling him that she was deep in thought. After a minute, a sad smile crossed her face.
Almost timidly, her suddenly shaking fingers went to the clasp, gripping the pendant in her right while she tried to pry the two tiny pieces apart.
"Wait, let me…" His words trailed off almost quickly as he looked at her, and when she looked up to meet his eyes, shifting slightly, the smile on her face changed.
"Thanks," she said, nodding her head. Now it was a genuine smile, and she held up the necklace to him.
Slightly in awe that this was actually happening, he took it from her and, though his fingers were a little bit clumsy and it took him a few tries, he opened the clasp on the necklace and then lowered the golden disc pendant over her head in front of her. Bringing the ends of the chain back together behind her neck and fastening them together, he let his hands drop just to her shoulders, beside the base of her neck. His thumbs moved gently against the skin above the neckline of her shirt.
At this point, they had both shifted and she was now sitting in front of him, staring into the fire, one of his bent knees on either side of her. Her hand went to her neck slowly, and this time, for the first time in a long while, it caught onto her necklace. Despite all of the things that the necklace had and did remind her of, she couldn't help but smile.
As many times as she'd told herself that it didn't matter than he'd taken it back, taken being a generous word for the way that he'd removed it from her, she realized now that that had just been another lie that she'd told to protect someone – in this case, to protect herself. It had mattered to her, and now that she had it back, it mattered even more. She could ignore the fact that it had belonged to a woman whose dead daughter she had pretended to be. Kurt had given it to her – twice now – and that was all that mattered, in the end. If he could be okay with all the rest of it, then she could, too.
She sat facing the fire, staring into the flames but not really seeing them because try as she might, she could focus on nothing except the fact that his hands sat on her shoulders – well, that and the necklace that she was now fingering between her index finger and her thumb. When she scooted herself back until her back leaned against his chest a few minutes later, his hands left her shoulders and wrapped around her tightly, neither of them needing to speak in order for there to be complete understanding between the two.
Neither of them were sure how long they sat there like that. At some point they heard Sarah and Sawyer tromp back inside noisily, stomping the snow off of their feet, Sawyer talking excitedly as he heard Sarah directing him to leave his boots on the mat – "No, Sawyer, not in the middle of the floor!" – and to put all of his wet snow gear in the dryer before he went anywhere else, and then to go upstairs and change into something dry. Footsteps moved in several different directions before both sets of them went back upstairs.
Kurt knew that one or both of the other Wellers would probably be joining them any minute. "Sounds like they had a lot of fun out there," Kurt whispered into her ear. Jane nodded, leaning her cheek against his. "We'll have to go out and play in the snow later, too… Maybe?" he suggested hopefully.
Jane chuckled, then nodded her head. "I've heard that snow is fun, and not just something that traps motorists in their cars for hours and hours," she replied, turning her head back toward him. "So I should probably try it out."
"You should," he agreed, happy to hear her sense of humor returning. "Though I would like to clarify that, um, being trapped in my car by snow for hours and hours wasn't all bad…" When she turned the rest of the way around, so that she was sitting on her knees facing him to better look him in the eye, there was a devilish smile on his face. Her face lit up with a smile of her own and she shook her head, laughing quietly.
"Agreed," she whispered. "It wasn'tbad at all."
He leaned his face slowly towards hers, so slowly that he was surprised at how long it took for his forehead to make contact with hers – or maybe that was just because the anticipation was making it feel longer. Next, he moved even more slowly until his nose bumped against hers, which made both of them smile, not moving away. Finally, at what felt slower than a snail's pace, their lips met, brushing together gently at first, and only very slowly pressing together with increasing pressure. After all, as Jane had thought before, there was no rush.
They were still kissing – it was still a very innocent kiss – when Sawyer walked into the room behind them. The ten year old, of course, was horrified. "Oh, yuck! You guys are in here kissing? Why didn't someone warn me?"
Jane and Kurt stopped kissing, but froze with their lips still pressed together, both holding in their laughter at the boy's reaction. Kurt leaned back just a fraction of an inch, just enough to be able to speak, but little enough that his nose and forehead were still pressed against Jane's. "Sorry… We're in here kissing," he called, keeping his eyes on Jane.
Poor kid, Jane thought. It's the second time he's caught us kissing.
"Have you been doing that this whole time?" Sawyer demanded.
"Yep," Kurt said in a voice that sounded loud to Jane, who was so close to him, but only because he wanted it to carry back to where Sawyer was. "We've been kissing this whole time."
"Oh my GOD," Sawyer exclaimed loudly, clearly distressed, turning dramatically and heading back upstairs. "Mom!" They heard his voice fading as he headed back upstairs. "They've been in here kissing this whole time!"
No longer able to hold it in, Jane and Kurt laughed quietly, and Kurt moved forward again that tiny little bit so that their lips were once again pressed together, though they were technically not kissing, but found that they needed to lean back again a few inches for air not long thereafter. There they sat, catching their breath and smiling happily at each other, and Jane realized that the weight of their earlier conversation had disappeared.
Her hand immediately, unconsciously, went to her necklace, which hung around her neck, and her smile intensified. Leaning forward to close the small gap between them once more, she kissed him this time, slowly and gently, before pulling her face back only far enough to look into his eyes. Brushing her nose against his a few extra times and lingering there, pressing their noses together, they remained there even after their lips had parted.
When they heard the sound of Sarah and Sawyer coming down the stairs, talking in exaggeratedly loud voices in what was obviously their way of making sure that the kissing had stopped before their arrival, they finally moved far enough away from each other that there could be no mistake about whether or not they were still kissing.
The noise stopped suddenly, and Sarah called, "Is it safe for your nephew to come back in? He doesn't want to see any kissing in there." They could tell from her voice that Sarah thought that this whole thing was hilarious.
"All clear," Kurt called. Jane chuckled, turning around to look back at the fire.
"You hear that, Sawyer?" Sarah was saying as they walked into the kitchen. "Uncle Kurt promised no more kissing."
Kurt turned around to look at the newcomers and grinned. "I was kidding before," he said, "we were not kissing that whole time. It just sounded good." He felt Jane punch him gently in the arm, and he chuckled, but kept looking at his sister and nephew. "Did you guys have fun outside?"
"It was awesome!" Sawyer gushed, bounding over to where they sat on the floor in front of the fire. "But, Uncle Kurt," Sawyer said, suddenly looking serious. He glanced over his shoulder and his voice dropped to a whisper. "Will you come outside with me later? Because you're way more fun than my mom."
"I heard that!" Sarah called loudly, pretending to be annoyed but just shaking her head at her son. She would never begrudge her brother how much Sawyer loved his uncle, even though it was occasionally annoying that she did everything for the kid and Kurt seemed to get hero status while she was just "mom." It probably had something to do with the fact that she also had the job of making him do homework and eat vegetables, she decided.
"Sorry, mom," Sawyer said automatically, standing up and walking back over to Sarah. "You're the best."
"Yes, I will make you hot chocolate," Sarah replied. "Since I know that's what you really wanted to ask."
"Because you're the best, just like I said," Sawyer replied with an angelic grin. Sarah rolled her eyes and shook her head at him, but continued to smile as she filled the kettle with water. "Do you guys want hot chocolate, too?" Sarah called. "Coffee? Tea?"
Kurt looked down at Jane in front of him. She had turned around to watch the interaction between the other two Wellers in the kitchen in amusement, just as Kurt had, and was still looking over her shoulder – now at Kurt. "I'd love some tea, please," Jane called, "But I can get it…"
"Stay where you are, you look very cozy," Sarah said with a wave of her hand. "I'm warming up the water anyway. Kurt?"
"Tea for me too, please," he called, not taking his eyes off of Jane. He was still thinking about the kiss from a few minutes before. It had been very innocent and yet… completely perfect. Just like this moment. "We'll have hot chocolate later, after we play in the snow, too."
The room was quiet for a minute, everyone involved in their own thoughts. Sawyer sat at the table reading a comic book that he'd brought down from upstairs with him – Spiderman, it looked like, from Kurt's angle. Sarah went about getting things ready in the kitchen, humming softly to herself. There was something familiar about that song she was humming… and then suddenly, it was obvious.
Jane was still watching him, and he gently prodded her head to the side with his nose so that he could speak right into her ear. "Do you hear what Sarah's humming?" he asked her. Jane was still for a few seconds, obviously concentrating on listening, before her smile widened and she nodded her head.
"What are the odds?" she whispered back.
"What are the odds of any of this?" he replied quietly. She nodded, happiness written all over her face as once again, she held onto the necklace that hung down in front of her, pressing it between her fingers to be sure that the whole thing hadn't been her imagination. Just then, she was fairly sure that she would never, ever, get tired of finding it hanging there.
In her mind, she heard herself telling him, a long time ago, back at the FBI, "Someone special gave it to me." The memory only made her smile even harder.
As he watched Jane, Kurt couldn't help but hear the words that went along with the tune that Sarah was humming, mostly in tune and mostly with the right melody.
"I could make you happy, make your dreams come true
There's nothing that I would not do
Go to the ends of the earth for you
To make you feel my love."
So true, thought Kurt. So true.