Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)
They stood there for a minute, each drawing strength from the other. Though he didn't want to, Kurt stepped back slowly, his eyes immediately finding and locking onto hers. "I should go and shower… I'll be quick." In his eyes was the question – Will you be okay while I'm gone?
Smiling back at him and knowing that a few minutes wasn't – shouldn't be – a big deal, she forced her head to nod, even though after the past half hour or so, she wasn't sure she could go even that long and trust her thoughts not to go back to places she didn't want them to go.
What's wrong with me? she wondered. I've gone for months without anyone caring about me whatsoever. I'm not some weepy, weak, needy woman who can't cope on my own. I've always coped on my own.
Don't make this about that, the voice in her head told her patiently. No one would accuse you of being weak for needing him in this situation. You're just as entitled to be traumatized by what has happened to you as Kurt. After everything you've been through… weak is the last thing you are. You need to give yourself some credit. And a break.
He dropped his hands from her reluctantly, stepping backward again, out of arms' reach and turning around to walk to his bag. After rifling through it for a minute and taking out what he needed, he smiled back at her and then disappeared out the door into the hall, the door closing softly behind him.
It was as though her calm went with him, however, and she looked around the room as if looking for an unseen enemy. Of course, her mind was the one generating the problems, so there was no actual enemy to be seen. She knew that, but that knowledge didn't seem to help.
Sinking down to the floor beside the bed, where the sleeping bag still lay from that morning, she sat down on top of it, her back against the bed, her knees folded up in front of her. Though she knew that she should probably go downstairs and find Sarah and Sawyer, the sound of their laughter filtering up from downstairs just wasn't something she was prepared to deal with. Sarah, unlike her brother, seemed to be unbothered by the ghosts of this house… or maybe she just hid it better. In any case, the two of them were downstairs having fun, something that Jane wasn't prepared to fake at that moment. At least, not without Kurt. It was easier to distance herself from her feelings when she was alone. It was much harder when she was around other people and had to pretend.
And so there she sat, taking shallow breaths in and out and reminding herself that it was all just in her mind. She could've said that about so many different things, really. There was a lot that was all in her mind, after all – though she couldn't decide if that should make her feel better or worse. Over the past months, since she'd been back with the FBI, she'd endured far worse bouts of panic, of desperation than this… but in a way it had been easier, because she'd built up walls around herself for protection from those feelings. Now, those walls had crumbled, she was dismayed to realize. While she knew that she had somehow landed in a better place, still this better place was a little bit terrifying at that moment.
Sitting there on the sleeping bag into which she had crawled with Kurt twice now, she closed her eyes and rested her forehead against her knees in front of her, her arms wrapped around them but not in the vice-like grip that they had been downstairs when he'd given her the necklace. She tried to force her thoughts back to happier things. The feel of the cool metal disc that meant so much to her between her fingers. Waking up with him, inside that very sleeping bag that morning, and the calm that she'd felt. Nothing else had mattered in that moment – not old ghosts or who they may or may not have been in other parts of their lives, only the two of them and who they were now. After all, that was how it should have been, wasn't it?
He walked back into the room five – okay, maybe seven at most – minutes later and saw her sitting on the sleeping bag, her back up against the bed and wrapped up in a ball the same way she had been after he'd given her the necklace. Immediately he felt his heart contract tightly, wondering what had happened. He set the bundle of his discarded pajamas down on top of his bag and sank down on the floor beside her, facing her, so that he was looking at her profile.
"Jane," he said quietly, "are you okay?" He laid a hand on her bicep before he'd even thought about doing it.
She lifted her head and he was relieved to see that there was a smile on her face, despite the hint of stress that he saw there as well. "Yeah," she said, looking at him gratefully. "Just… waiting for you."
"Come on," he said, pushing himself up off the floor and extending his hand to her. "Let's get out of this house for a little while."
While that sounded good to her, she had to wonder if outside the house would be any less stressful than inside the house. After all, they were still within the confines of his childhood. She could only hope that both of them would feel less haunted outside. It was certainly worth a try, however. Besides, they'd be there together, and that counted for a lot.
She reached up gratefully, and when he grabbed her hand, she felt warmth rush through her, seeming to go straight to her cheeks, which she felt turning pink. Feeling herself blushing, she looked away, and then back at him slowly, only to find him looking at her with the most genuinely kind look in his eyes… it was the kind of look that she was afraid to get used to, and yet, she was already addicted to it.
He held onto her hand as they walked to the door and out into the hall, as she simply held out her arm fall behind her as she went through the door frame in front of him, so that he could keep hold of her hand. They walked right past all of the places where the two of them had seen ghosts of Kurt and Taylor's pasts – since they weren't actually part of Jane's past, no matter how strongly she felt like they were – and when they came to the stairs their hands reluctantly dropped. However, his hand went directly to her shoulder, squeezing slightly as she descended the stairs in front of him.
At the bottom, his hand slid down her arm back to her hand, and even though she was wearing his thick green sweater, she felt goosebumps erupt under the two layers of cloth that separated the skin of his fingers from the skin of her arms. Somehow it both comforted her and made her a little nervous at the same time that she could have this kind of a reaction to him, but she just smiled. After all, they'd made it this far.
His hand squeezed hers and then, too soon, he let go. She felt the loss of contact immediately, and was surprised how strongly she felt it. "Let's go see what those two are up to," he said. "I need to ask Sarah about the snow pants situation." She just nodded, following him into the next room, feeling the goofy smile settle on her face again.
"Hey, Sarah," Kurt called, coming around the corner and finding his sister and nephew kneeling on the floor by the TV at the far side of the living room, going through a large, cardboard box of movies on old VHS tapes. Sarah looked up and smiled when she saw that the two of them.
"Hey," she grinned up at them, which only made Kurt roll his eyes at her, though the grin on his face was even bigger – he just didn't know it. "We were just inspecting the Christmas movie selection around here."
"Is there a VCR to play those things?" Kurt asked, astonished at the thought of how old they must be. He stopped just behind Sarah, looking down at the covers of the tapes that he grudgingly recognized from their childhood.
"Yep, it was still hooked up to the TV, even," Sarah replied, shaking her head.
"Wow," Kurt replied. "I haven't seen VHS tapes in… I don't even know how long." Sarah just nodded. "So," he said, changing the subject, "you said you had some snow pants and maybe boots that Jane could borrow?"
Sawyer, hearing the word snow, was suddenly standing up beside his uncle and bouncing excitedly. "You're going outside? In the snow?" he asked, nearly knocking himself over with excitement. "Mom, I can go outside with them, right?" His face was so hopeful that Sarah hoped very much that Kurt hadn't had his heart set on just going outside with Jane.
"That's up to Uncle Kurt," Sarah said, sitting back on her knees, and then standing up slowly.
"Can I, Uncle Kurt? Please? Please? Please?" he begged, increasingly frantic.
Kurt chuckled. Sawyer sure was excited. "Of course, buddy. I need your help showing Jane all the fun stuff you can do in the snow."
"This is going to be awesome!" he exclaimed, and then took off running toward the front entryway, where his snow gear was hanging up from earlier when he and Sarah had ventured outside.
"And to answer your original question, yes, I have snow pants that should fit Jane. I'm not sure about the boots, but definitely try and see if they fit. All that stuff should be in the front, with Sawyer's. Shouldn't be hard to miss," she told them.
Jane smiled gratefully in her direction. "Thanks, Sarah," she said.
"Oh, thank you two for getting my son out of the house. Hopefully he'll burn off some more of that unlimited energy of his out there. Meanwhile, I'll enjoy the quiet in here."
"Everybody wins," Kurt replied, turning towards the front door. With Jane now in front of him, having followed him into the room and then turned to walk out first, he took advantage of the few seconds it would take them to walk to the front of the house, stepping up close behind her. She seemed to have intentionally slowed her pace, and for a few seconds, they were walking very close together. Though they weren't quite touching, when she turned to look at him over her shoulder, her face was suddenly much closer to his than she'd expected – which was a welcome surprise. Their eyes met for a second, and she felt herself grinning involuntarily once again.
He watched the smile on her face widen, and he had a feeling that his smile might be just as wide as hers. He fought the urge to lean forward, pull her to a stop, and kiss her, since they were coming into Sawyer's line of sight. When his eyes shifted toward his nephew, beyond Jane, Kurt saw that the boy was looking at them skeptically, his snow pants already on.
"You're not going to…?" the ten year old said sternly, and it was very clear what he meant, even without the last word of the question. To Kurt's amusement, apparently he didn't even want to say the word kiss, much less see any more kissing.
Kurt leaned back as Jane turned around to face Sawyer, both looking at him seriously. "Nope," Kurt said sincerely. "I promise."
"Good," Sawyer replied, his worry seemingly taken care of. With that, he sat down to put on his boots, and as soon as his nephew's eyes were averted, Kurt leaned forward very quickly, and gave Jane a silent peck on the cheek. As innocent as it was, she felt herself blush. It was really that easy for him to make her smile.
Kurt opened the duffle bag of winter gear they had brought, and between the contents of the bag and the snow pants from Sarah, they suited up for outside. Sarah's tall snow boots hadn't fit Jane, unfortunately, but Jane had the slightly less than ideal, shorter boots. They agreed that they would be better than nothing, since neither of them had planned to embark on an all-day trek through the snow.
Sawyer had already ducked out into the front yard, and Kurt pulled the door closed just enough that his nephew couldn't see him lean in close to Jane and whisper, "Let me know if those boots aren't keeping your feet warm, okay?"
His eyes were locked on hers, and it was hard to think about anything except him when he was that close to her, but she nodded her agreement.
"I'm serious, Jane. I know you have a tendency to want to deny that anything bothers you, but we don't want you getting frostbite. That's even less fun than hypothermia. Okay?"
She couldn't help but smile at how over protective he was being. Of course she wasn't going to just walk around from frozen feet or ankles all afternoon. Granted, she could see why he might think that she would… She could grudgingly admit – to herself, anyway – that she did have a tendency to ignore her own discomfort, no matter how severe.
He leaned close to her face, their noses pressing together, and she felt warmth flood through her despite the cold air that was coming in through the partially open door. "I promise," she whispered, and was about to lean forward to kiss him when Sawyer pushed into the opening of the door, and Jane jumped back out of the way.
"Foiled again by the youngster," Kurt mumbled, once they'd assured Sawyer that they were indeed following him outside, yes, right now. Jane just chuckled. Of course she'd wanted to kiss him, but it wasn't as though she wouldn't get another chance.
The three went out into the frigid air, and for a few seconds Kurt just stopped and looked around at the snow covered landscape. Of course, he'd been here on plenty of snowy days as a kid, but somehow he didn't remember it ever looking quite this… what? It looked different enough from the way he remembered it that the dull ache in his chest that had settled over him earlier seemed to lessen slightly. He could almost pretend that he was somewhere else, anywhere else…
But then they followed Sawyer on the path that he and Sarah had made through the deep snow around the back of the house, where "the best snow to play in," according to Sawyer, was to be found. Once they got back there, Kurt was once again overwhelmed by the familiar dull ache in his heart. After all, Taylor's house was within his peripheral vision. With a sigh, he just accepted that as long as they were there in Clearfield, he was just going to keep seeing her everywhere, as much as it pained him.
Turning so that his back was to Taylor's house, he found himself looking at the wooden fort, the one that he had tipped over the night he and Sarah had dug up that entire area, not finding Taylor's remains… He turned again, trying to position himself so that both Taylor's house and the fort, as well as his own former home, were all behind him. It was very complicated.
Jane noticed when Kurt looked over towards Taylor's house, and the look on his face when he deliberately turned away. Then as she watched, she saw that same look come over his face when he faced a small wooden structure that may have been a playhouse in the Weller children's childhood. He faced away from that as well, and then finally appeared to relax.
So many demons, she thought sadly to herself. Sawyer had busied himself with making snowballs, which he was piling up by his feet, dipping his hands again and again into the snow and quickly amassing quite an arsenal. Jane moved in front of Kurt, stopping about a foot away and looking into his eyes worriedly.
Are you okay? her eyes asked, without her uttering a word. He nodded at her, his mouth twitching slightly in the way that she somehow understood to mean that he was working at it, but that he was okay - mostly.
And then just like that, a snowball hit him in the arm, and a snowball fight had been declared – by Sawyer, of course. When they turned in the direction of the raucous laughter that echoed across the silent frozen landscape, they saw Sawyer nearly doubled over, finding it completely hilarious that he had been the one to fire the first shot.
"You did not just hit me with a snowball!" Kurt called, pretending to be shocked, quickly stooping down and scooping snow together to form a large snowball of his own. He launched it at his nephew, which only made Sawyer laugh even harder, even though the snowball hit him squarely in the middle of his chest and seemed to explode in a puff of flying whiteness. Sawyer simply launched another snowball back at Kurt. This one missed his ear by about an inch, and Kurt's eyes grew wide. Jane had been watching in amusement, and now she watched carefully, then imitated Kurt's technique to make a snowball, launching it at Sawyer as he reached for another of his pre-made ones. The volley had begun, and it went on steadily, back and forth, for several minutes as all of the participants laughed and retaliated time and time again.
"Jane! Are you sure you want to be on Uncle Kurt's team? Or do you want to come over to my side?" Sawyer called, giving her one more chance for amnesty. Jane looked at him thoughtfully for a second, then called, "I don't think I'm ready to declare my allegiance yet," which made both Wellers look at her in surprise.
Kurt grinned at her as he packed another snowball. "You'd better hurry up and figure it out," he said, "a close range snow attack is very… well, cold." He winked at her then.
"Hey Jane, what did you mean when you said you're not ready to 'declare your allegiance?'" Sawyer called from where he had begun restocking his supply of snowballs while he figured out just what was going on.
"It means she doesn't want to say whose team she's on yet," Kurt called.
"Maybe I'm on my own team," Jane called, trying to run off into the snow but quickly discovering that running in snow wasn't exactly easy. She looked at her feet as if they'd betrayed her, then bent down where she was and started forming snowballs, looking from Kurt to Sawyer, trying to figure out which one of them would be the target of her first attack. There wasn't really a question in her mind though – of course it would be Kurt.
Kurt was bent over, forming snowballs and dropping them in front of them, creating a stockpile while Jane figured out what she wanted to do, so he didn't see her wind up and throw her very first ever snowball directly at him. Since he'd been bent over and Jane was, of course, an excellent shot, it hit him squarely on the top of his head. He looked up in surprise, his eyes automatically going to Sawyer, but Sawyer pointed at Jane.
"Oh, you guys are teaming up on me, now?" Kurt called, laughing.
"Yep," Jane called back, wading through the snow to where Sawyer had stationed himself, testing her throwing arm with her next snowball from the new distance. This snowball hit Kurt squarely in the chest, and for a second he pretended to be upset before a wide grin spread across his face.
"I'm just warning you, the two of you may both have that 'cute' thing going on," Kurt called to Sawyer and Jane, "But it won't save you this time. I'm going to be ruthless…
"Thanks for the tip, Uncle Kurt," Sawyer called, then motioned for Jane to come closer, and when she did, they whispered conspiratorially behind his gloved hand. As he watched, Kurt picked up as many snowballs as he could hold in his left arm, leaving his right arm free for throwing. Then suddenly, with impressive coordination, both Jane and Sawyer threw their snowballs at the same time. Jane's hit Kurt just above the knee, and from the surprised look on his face, it may have hit him a little harder than she'd intended. Sawyer's snowball thumped lightly against his stomach, prompting him to immediately fall backwards dramatically into the snow, but not before he threw a snowball at each of the in retaliation on his way down.
The snowball he'd thrown at Sawyer had sailed past him, but the one he'd thrown at Jane had exploded in a puff of cold powder against her neck, sending quickly melting snowflakes down her neck and in the space under her jacket as well as all over the side of her face. She swiped at them quickly, trying to at least remove the ones she could get to on her skin, which were melting and, she noticed, feeling very cold and wet.
At that moment, Sarah called to Sawyer from the back door, and Sawyer tromped back toward the house to see what his mom wanted. As she watched the boy retreat, Jane looked back over at Kurt, still lying still in the snow. She decided to make her way over to him to make sure he was okay – it seemed strange that he hadn't gotten up.
Kurt was now lying flat on his back, staring up at the sky. He'd thrown himself backwards on purpose, to be dramatic, but now that he was here, staring up at the gray clouds, it had reminded him of something. Of Taylor, of course, because everything in this whole damn place reminded him of Taylor. He sighed, resigning himself to the memory.
Interestingly enough, it had been summer at the time, but they had been lying in the grass, side by side and flat on their backs, looking up at the angry clouds just before a rainstorm.
The sky looks angry, Taylor had said worriedly.
No, that's just how the sky looks before a thunderstorm, Kurt had assured her.
But how do we know? Taylor had asked. Of course, he had been nine years old at that time, or something like that, so he knew that the sky wasn't really angry. It was just the way that weather worked, after all.
Because some really smart scientists figured out that when the sky looks like that, it means it's going to storm, he'd told her patiently.
But how do they know? Taylor had continued to insist. What if they're all wrong? What if the sky is angry? What if we could do something and make it happy, and we just don't because we think it's just the weather?
Present day Kurt smiled sadly, remembering the day so clearly, remembering Taylor's insistent belief that maybe the scientists were wrong, something that had never crossed his mind.
Well then, he had said, deciding he wasn't going to win his argument with logic, what should we do to make it happy?
Taylor had thought hard for a minute, staring at the ever darkening sky the way you would a person you were trying to understand.
Finally, she stuck her arm straight up toward the sky and waved enthusiastically. Hi, sky! she had yelled at the top of her lungs. Hi up there! Have a nice day!
He'd turned to look at her then. At only four years old, she still had the luxury of an innocence that Kurt no longer did. Maybe he never had been that innocent, especially since his mom had left them years ago. Without warning, the urge to protect that innocence in her asserted itself, and he looked up at the sky waving his hand – though less enthusiastically than Taylor had, but waving nonetheless – and calling Hi, sky! We see you up there.
He had felt ridiculous, but he didn't care. To his surprise, less than a minute later, the ominously dark cloud that had been directly over them seemed to blow past, and they could see the sun shining through what must have been a much thinner, lighter cloud. The light was still filtered, but the difference was remarkable.
See! Taylor had shouted triumphantly. See! It worked! We made the sky happy!
It was impossible, of course, and a very mature nine year old Kurt knew that. You couldn't make the sky happy any more than you could make the grass happy.
Are you sure? Absolutely sure? the voice in his head asked. How can you ever know something like that 100% for certain? How can anyone? He had to concede to himself that he could not prove Taylor wrong, though he was 99% sure.
Hi, sky, he thought sadly, back in the present. And then, because why the hell not, he added one more thought.
Hi, Taylor. I'm sorry…
He didn't know if he believed in God or heaven or any of that stuff, but somehow it was nicer to think of her somewhere out in the universe, in a better place that the world where she'd been treated so cruelly, than to think that she was just simply gone.
Jane reached him then, having made her way slowly over to him and now standing by his feet, looking at him with concern. "Kurt, are you okay?" she asked. "Or… just taking a little nap?" She smiled at him crookedly, then walked around the side of him. They were both very bundled up, but she could see enough of his face to see that his expression was distant and sad, very unlike the carefree one that had been on his face when he'd fallen backwards into the snow. She'd seen this expression several times already that day, and she knew that something had reminded him of Taylor. It shouldn't surprise her, she knew. Everything was reminding him of Taylor. She was everywhere here. That, plus his hatred of his father, had been the reason he hadn't been back in decades.
Turning back to glance at the house, she saw that Sawyer had finished talking to Sarah and now seemed to be rolling giant snowballs into place, one beside another. He appeared to have some kind of purpose to what he was doing, which told her that she and Kurt probably had at least a few minutes before he got curious about what was going on over here.
She looked back at Kurt just in time to see his face change, his expression suddenly one that was somewhere between amazement and pain, a quiet gasp escaping from his lips. Turning to look up at the sky, Jane saw that the clouds had parted just a tiny bit, and weak rays of sunlight were shining through. Blinking at the sudden brightness, as the light was reflected by the whiteness all around them, she looked back at Kurt. She could be wrong, of course, or it could just be the cold or the light or a combination of both, but she swore that his eyes were watering.
Cursing the fact that they were so bundled up, she sat up on her knees and "walked" forward slightly until her legs touched the edge of his jacket. Leaning over him carefully and looking down at him with concern, she uttered only one word.
"Taylor?" she asked simply.
He just nodded, and he suddenly felt a flood of guilt. He was here with Jane, and he was ridiculously happy that he was, and yet it seemed like all he could think of was Taylor. He must seem like a broken record to her by now.
You know her better than that, the voice in his head reminded him. It was true, he realized, and yet still… he wished he didn't have to lean on her quite as much as he'd been doing.
As soon as he nodded, the pit of her stomach filled with a miserable combination of guilt and shame. Once again, she was ashamed that she had used something so intensely personal to him to try to manipulate him.
That wasn't you, the voice in her head chimed in automatically. That was Remi. And yet, somehow she still felt guilty for it.
Looking up at her, he shook his head and smiled sadly, she was doing the same thing he was doing, and it showed on her face. He couldn't help but think that their perfectly matched compassion for each other was just another sign of how well they seemed to just fit together.
Realizing that this wasn't about her, but about him, and that she needed to have her pity party another time, she reached out and picked up his gloved hand, sandwiching it in between both of hers. She'd been surprised to find him watching her when she'd looked up, but she'd just smiled sadly and gone on with what she was going. The pile of their hands, inside their snow gloves, was a little bit ridiculous, but she did her best to hold onto his hand nonetheless. After all, it was the thought that counted… wasn't that the expression?
She was holding one of his hands, and he pushed his other hand again the ground, bracing himself, and pulled himself up to a sitting position, now directly in front of her. "I'm glad you're here, Jane," he said sincerely. "This would have been a lot harder without you."
His admission startled her and for a second, she could only just look at him sadly, her chest aching for what this place must be doing to him, even more than what she could actually see. "Me, too," she finally smiled back at him.
From the look in her eyes, he could see that even if she didn't know what had just happened inside his head, she still somehow understood that something was affecting him. He told himself that he would tell her about these memories that he was having – just then he had the urge to tell her everything, including things that he'd never told anyone.
It's a good thing, the voice in his head reassured him. It means you trust her.
As much as he wanted to tell her everything, he decided that he could wait a little while at least, at least until they weren't sitting in the snow. After all, she might not realize that the cold dampness was going to be soaking through their snow pants and leaving them soaked as they sat there, but he knew.
"Come on," he said, pushing himself to stand up, and then putting out his hand to help her up as well, "Let's go see what in the world Sawyer's doing over there with all of those giant snowballs." She let him pull her up, and watched as the lights seemed to come back on inside him. There was still a shadow across his face, but at least she could see that the Kurt she knew and loved – yes, loved – was still in there.
As they got closer to where Sawyer was working, they could see that he had singlehandedly built two walls of giant snowballs, about ten feet apart and facing each other, each wall two snowballs high. This brought them about up to waist height on the ten year old.
"Hey buddy, this is awesome!" Kurt called as they approached.
Sawyer beamed excitedly, panting slightly from the exertion of building and lifting so many huge snowballs. "Mom suggested a snow fort or some kind of 'cover' for our snowball fights," he replied. "They would be better if they were higher, but I can't lift the snowballs up past here…" He shrugged his shoulders, looking at his work proudly despite his professed disappointment.
"Well, I think that Jane and I can help you in that department," Kurt told him. "And then we can continue what you started earlier." He winked at Sawyer, who grinned from ear to ear, clearly excited about the prospect of more snowball fighting. Kurt and Sawyer demonstrated rolling the giant snowballs that Sawyer had used to build the two walls, and Jane made her own successfully, rolling it until it was the size of the ones already on the first wall and then hefting it up on the wall closest to her to make a third level as Kurt watched her proudly.
"Awesome!" Sawyer called. "Now we just need a bunch more of those up there like that."
Jane and Kurt both laughed, shaking their heads. Clearly, this power was going to Sawyer's head, but they continued working anyway. In fact, between the three of them, they finished the third layer on both walls in a relatively short time. Just as they stepped back to admire their work, Sarah was peeking out through the back door again.
"Hey, guys! Lunch is ready! Come in before it gets cold!" With that, she closed the door again, leaving them all looking at each other uncertainly.
Sawyer was the first one to react. "Awww, man!" he said in disappointment, kicking the snow beside his foot with disappointment.
"Hey, Sawyer," Kurt said, walking over to his nephew. "The temperature isn't going up for days, so this'll all still be here later. Let's go recharge a little, take a break, and we'll be ready for an epic snowball fight later." He watched the wheels turning in Sawyer's head. "Maybe," Kurt said slowly, "we'll even convince your mom to come out here and join us." His expression started to change, and he obviously liked the idea of more people in their game, so he nodded, smiling slowly.
"Okay," he declared, turning and walking back toward the house as if going inside had been his own idea.
"Way to go, Uncle Kurt," Jane said with an impressed smile, walking towards him.
"What can I say?" he asked, putting a heavily bundled arm around her shoulders as they started to walk carefully through the snow. "When you got it, you got it." She punched him gently in the stomach, shaking her head and chuckling.
"Let's not get carried away," she warned him with a grin, leaning her head against him and putting her own heavily bundled up arm around his back as they walked carefully through the snow back toward the house. She was only just now noticing that there was snow inside her boots. And her gloves. And… basically, she was pretty sure there was snow inside every part of what she was wearing, and she began shivering for the first time.
"I think," she said slowly, knowing that he was going to tell her that she should have said something sooner, "I have snow in my boots." She left out the rest of it for the time being.
He shook his head and looked at her in pretend exasperation. Instead of the lecture she was expecting, his eyes said it all. What she wasn't expecting, however, was for him to kiss the top of her head.
"I saw that!" they heard Sawyer shout as they rounded the front of the house. "You promised no kissing!"
"Oh, come on, that didn't count!" Kurt yelled back. "I can give you that same kind of kiss!" They both watched in amusement as a horrified look came over Sawyer's face the he practically dove inside the front door.
"Well, now that he's gone," Kurt said, pulling her to a stop and winding his arm around her waist. He pulled off one of his snow gloves, and she was about to ask him what in the world he was doing, when he laid his fingers against her face. His fingers, though cold, were warmer than her cheek, and she leaned into the relative warmth, smiling happily.
He leaned down slowly, pressing his forehead against hers first, then pushed their noses together. She watched him carefully as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, just paused there with his face against hers.
"Are you okay?" she asked after a few seconds. She was still thinking of the look on his face when they'd been in the backyard.
"Right now? Very," he replied, which made her chuckle. However, she couldn't shake a feeling of unease, like the bottom dropping out of her stomach, when she thought back to him lying in the snow. It had obviously rattled him, whatever it had been, even though he hadn't wanted to admit it. Suddenly, her mind just brought her right back to her own – well, Remi's – participation in manipulating him, and once again, she felt her chest ache.
He watched as she went from laughing back to anguished in less than three seconds.
We're really quite a pair, aren't we? he thought in awe. How in the world do we do this to ourselves?
"I'm sorry," she blurted out, her face tightening, "I—"
"No," he said cutting her off. "You don't get to be sorry, not for any of it, and that's final. It. Was. Not. You. Do you hear me?"
She felt tears in her eyes, which only made her face feel even colder than it already did.
"Do I wish that my father hadn't done what he did? Of course," he told her matter-of-factly. "Do I wish that Remi hadn't done what she did?" He made sure to put a heavy emphasis on the word she, to differentiate her as a different person. Then, looking deep into her eyes, he answered his own question, in a voice that was suddenly almost a whisper. "Not for a second."
He watched as her face twisted in confusion, letting her take in his words before he continued. "Because if she hadn't, then you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't be Jane. You'd still be Remi. Which means I'd still have the bad in my life… because what my father did… he was going to do that whether Sandstorm came along or not. But what I wouldn't have had, if not for Remi… is the good." He looked at her warningly, his eyes telling her that he wasn't going to allow disagreement on this point. "Because you are the good in my life. And you're not allowed to tell yourself otherwise."
"But—" she started. Realizing that words were not going to deter her arguments, he leaned forwards and kissed her instead.
There was something different about kissing outside in the freezing cold air, she noticed. It made his lips feel warmer, and – or maybe she was imagining it? – softer, too. Far too soon, he pulled back and looked at her again seriously, their faces only far enough apart that he could look her in the eyes, and those eyes dared her to disagree with him.
"I should probably argue with you again if that's the way you're going to shut me up," she said with a grin. "But…" She sighed, smiling slowly at his persistence as her voice dropped to a whisper, "okay, fine." She leaned forward again, her head lower this time, pressing her forehead against his lips and feeling him plant a kiss against her cold skin.
"Haven't we done 'cold' enough for now?" he asked. "Let's go get warmed up."
Nodding with a genuine smile on her face, she looked back up at him and smiled. "Sounds like a plan," she agreed. "Because there's, uh… a LOT of snow in my boots. And my gloves. And… well… everywhere, basically." He stared at her in disbelief as she quickly started walking toward the house.
"You were supposed to tell me that!" he called after her as she moved quickly toward the door.
"I'm telling you now," she called over her shoulder. "I didn't notice. There was a lot going on… You're very distracting, you know."
He shook his head as he followed her to the front door. She was impossible.
And he wouldn't change that for anything.