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 didn't mean for this chapter to get so long, but I couldn't split it. Therefore, you may want to have a snack handy for this one, because I know it's long… but I hope you enjoy it. :)
He'd warmed up some soup for them – something full of noodles and vegetables, though she didn't actually know what kind it was – and they'd eaten it along with ham and cheese sandwiches that Jane had proudly made. They sat at the table beside each other, eating quietly. The silence was both comforting and awkward, since – despite how much there was to talk about – neither of them quite knew what to say. There was no guarantee of privacy, sitting there in the kitchen, anyway. Still, it wasn't an uncomfortable awkwardness between them. The one big thing they had in common at that moment was that they craved the other's presence, despite the slight uneasiness. As proof, their chairs sat pressed together, just as they had at every meal they'd had there.
Sarah seemed to have disappeared back upstairs, possibly to take a nap after getting up so early on the heels of last night, and Sawyer was similarly nowhere to be seen. The house was quiet, and it almost felt as if they were there alone. After the night they'd had, and how tired they both still were, the silence was music to their ears – the thoughts they were both having were still thunderously loud, after all, so the lack of noise around them helped to balance it out.
Despite having thought that she was desperately hungry, Jane ate not even half of the soup that he'd given her and less than half of the sandwich that she'd put on her own plate. She looked down at the food that was left in front of her and sighed. When she wasn't careful, even her lack of a real appetite was discouraging to her. After all, it was just another one of the lasting, obvious reminders of her CIA imprisonment. It might not be as bad as the scars on her body, but in another way it was even harder to disguise. It felt as though the scars – and not just the physical ones – would never go away.
"You did pretty well with that," he commented, noticing that she seemed to be looking at the food remaining in front of her with hostility. She glanced up at him with a hastily forced smile before glancing away, but even as much as she'd tried not to let him see it, he'd noticed that the smile didn't quite reach her eyes. "Seriously," he added.
"Do you want the rest?" she asked, attempting to keep her voice steady, to pretend she didn't feel so horribly self-conscious about her lack of appetite and to avoid having to think or talk about how much it bothered her that she ate so little any more than she had to.
"Only if you're sure you don't," he told her.
"I'm sure," she affirmed, sliding her plate over to him.
"Well, if it'll help you out…" he said with a grin.
"Yes, please, destroy the evidence that I can't even eat a normal amount of food, ever since…"
Dammit. She really hadn't wanted any of that to come out of her mouth, for him to know just how much it bothered her.
Why not? she asked herself. You know he only wants to help you.
She had managed to stop herself from completing her sentence, but she suddenly felt completely defeated. It wasn't just one thing – her life had never been that simple. At that moment it felt like the weight of all of it fell on her shoulders, and she sighed heavily, closing her eyes.
She didn't want to talk about it, and now she would have no choice but to do just that. Really, she just wanted to forget.
Forgetting hasn't really been going that well so far, though, has it? the voice in her head asked.
Shut up, she told the voice in annoyance. I'm doing my best.
Give him a chance to help, the voice coaxed her.
Now understanding better what her discouragement was about, he slid the plate away from him and turned toward her, laying his left arm along her shoulders and finding her right hand with his. "Jane," he said calmly, even though inside he had just gone from calm to anxious as if someone had flipped a switch. "It's been… what? A few days? Since you've really been eating regularly, I mean…"
She nodded, not trusting her voice. Because you've been making sure of it, she thought, looking up at him.
"Everything you've been through…" He pushed away a wave of guilt, knowing that a lot of it was his fault. That won't help her now, he reminded himself. "It all takes time. You're getting there. And you don't have to do it alone. You know that, right?" She nodded, her eyes now open but looking down at such a sharp angle that they almost appeared closed.
"Come on," he said, knowing that she didn't want to talk about it, and thinking that she was ready for a change of scenery, even a small one. "Let's go upstairs and get dressed, and then we'll see if there's anything on TV. We'll sit and just watch something brainless for a little while before I go subject myself to shoveling the driveway," he suggested. While she didn't really care what was on TV, she appreciated the idea of the distraction. When he withdrew his arm slowly from her back so that he could stand up, she immediately felt cold air fill that space. It made her shiver slightly as she watched him push back his chair, stand up and take the dishes to the counter by the sink.
She was still watching him when he walked back to the table and looked at her expectantly, noticing that he wasn't exactly smiling, but that his eyes seemed to be drawing her in, watching her intently. Standing up slowly, she pushed her chair back under the table and walked with him back toward the stairs. Back in their room, they both fished clothes out of their respective bags and, being the first one to find everything he needed, he smiled at her and then darted out of the room towards the bathroom without a word.
Watching him go, it was all she could do to wonder at the tiny things that he did that made her heart burst with affection for him. Like right now, when he simply made himself scarce when it was time for them both to change, avoiding any potential awkwardness. Yes, they were both adults and yes, they were attracted to each other and yes, it was quite possible that they would get to that point, maybe, if she could ever get past everything that haunted her – not least the horrible scars all over her body – but… she was not there yet, which automatically meant that they were not there yet, and he made it clear without saying a word that that was absolutely fine with him. It was one of a thousand things – or maybe more – that made her love him.
Back downstairs in the family room, she followed him to the couch. Sitting down timidly, she found that somehow they ended up with a few inches of space between them once they were both settled.
How had that happened, anyway? she wondered. It certainly hadn't been on purpose, as far as she knew.
He appeared to notice at the same time she did, and he mumbled, "Well, that's no good," moving closer to her until their sides were comfortably pressed together and taking her hand, this time her left in his right. She angled herself so that she could comfortably let her head fall against his shoulder as he held the remote control in his left hand, pressing hard on the buttons until it worked. The small TV finally came to life, and the sound of voices floated through the air. It was slightly jarring at first, after the stillness in which they'd had lunch, but he turned it down a little and it became more of a comfortable background noise.
"I didn't mean to scare you," Jane said quietly, out of nowhere. She was staring down at their joined hands. It seemed easier this way, with his comforting presence beside her, but not having to look into his eyes as she spoke.
"I know that, Jane," he whispered, squeezing her hand.
"I just woke up and I… I just needed to get out. The weather was, I guess you could say, rather unfortunately timed." Once again, he leaned his cheek against the top of her head, nodding silently. "And I don't know why, but when I was standing out there, I had this urge to go and find that hiding spot you talked about, yours and Taylor's… which, I know, is stupid because… well… for a lot of reasons, but the biggest one besides the fact that it was the middle of a blizzard and the middle of the night being that I'm not Taylor…"
Her tone was matter of fact, blameless, and yet, he felt guilt stabbing at him. I pulled my gun on her, he told himself. What kind of a monster does that to someone they're supposed to care about?
As it was so emphatically pointed out to me the night you arrested me, she thought, but managed not to editorialize the point.
He saw the whole thing happening in slow motion in his mind, like a horror movie that he couldn't look away from, no matter how much he wanted to.
So, if Taylor Shaw is dead… then who the hell are you?
It was the kind of image that nightmares were made of – he'd had his gun pointed at her, for God's sake. For a minute he wondered if he was going to be sick, but he took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and focused only on the present. On the fact that she was there beside him, that they were okay, and that that part of their past was over.
She took a breath and kept going. "…because you'd said that you used to go there and wait, because you thought that if she ever came back that's where you'd find her… and it was stupid because I'd been right there next to you in the sleeping bag, and I was the one who went outside in a damn blizzard. You shouldn't have needed to find me! And then suddenly, once I was out there, instead of just turning around and going back inside, I started thinking that I wanted someone – no, not someone, you, to find me…" Her voice trailed off and she shook her head sadly. "I sound like an idiot, even to myself." She paused then, slightly out of breath after her words had just started pouring out.
He was quiet for a minute, and the longer it stretched out, the more her stomach clenched, afraid of what he was going to say. "First of all, 'idiot' is not the word that I would use," he said soothingly, which made her smile slightly, despite everything. Of course, it reminded her of the first day they'd gone undercover together, and it had certainly not been an accident that he used those words now.
She'd looked so beautiful that day, and so happy… hell, he'd been so happy that day. Never mind that their lives were in danger. That op had meant the chance to be closer to her, even if it was allegedly only acting… because deep down, even though he hadn't quite admitted it to himself, it hadn't all been an act.
"And secondly, I think that most people, at one time or another, just need to be reassured that if they weren't around, someone would notice. That someone would miss them. Even if they don't want to admit it."
She knew that he was talking about her, and the day not too long ago when she'd offered herself as the "logical choice" for a dangerous mission based solely on the fact that, in her words, no one would miss her if something went wrong – not to gain his sympathy, but because she saw it as the truth. It made sense, in some twisted way, that that had possibly been what she'd been thinking the night before. That she wanted to find their hiding place because he'd said that as kids, he used to look for her there. And in her confusion and terror leftover from the dream, once she'd found herself outside and in danger, she'd just wanted him to find her.
Does that actually make sense? she asked herself. She didn't know. Really, she felt like she didn't know anything anymore.
"Maybe," she replied quietly.
"And I know I told you before," he said, squeezing her hand again, "that I would miss you… But… well, that's not quite right." He felt her stiffen, and he leaned into her. "Let me finish, okay?" His tone was warm and it seemed unlikely that was about to say anything unkind, she had simply conditioned herself to expect the worst.
She forced herself to relax, though she was suddenly very confused about what he was talking about.
So he wouldn't miss me?
"I wouldn't just miss you," he told her. "I don't… I don't even want to think about a life that you're not part of. And I know… my actions haven't really shown that up until a few days ago…"
Her head was shaking against him in protest. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that," she interrupted him. "It wasn't fair of me. It's behind us. We can't change it."
"But you weren't wrong, what you said. I understand why you felt that way," he replied with a sad smile. "And no, we can't change it. But I'm saying this anyway, because I want you to know how serious I am. And that I understand… that your hesitation isn't because you don't want to believe me – at least, I don't think it is –"
He looked at her with an expectant smile, and she shook her head slightly, a slight smile on her lips. "Okay, good. So, anyway, I know that it's because it's just not that easy. I don't expect it to be. I don't expect any of it to be easy. And I'm okay with it not being easy… what I would not be okay with is losing you." His voice dropped to a whisper then, as he added, "Not again."
He turned her hand over in his, so that the back of her hand, covered in such intricate designs that it almost looked like more ink than skin, faced up. With the index finger on his left hand, he began tracing those fine lines, still holding her hand tightly in his right. The feeling reminded her of when he'd traced the oil derrick tattoo on her back, both soothing and giving rise to the feeling of butterflies in her stomach at the same time, and she couldn't help but smile. Her mind was empty for a few seconds, just focusing on that sensation, before returning once again to the night before.
"It felt so real… the dream," she said in a low voice, a shiver running through her whole body – he even felt it through her hand, and through the leg, shoulder and side that were pressed against his own. "I don't think I've ever been so scared, not even when…"
When Keaton was torturing me, she thought, but didn't say it out loud. Her eyes fell closed as she remembered, despite not wanting to remember with everything inside her. She felt him squeeze her hand, and she continued to force the words out.
"…and then he…" She knew that she shouldn't go into details, that it was something her mind had made up on its own anyway, and that there was no use hurting him with her version of what may have happened to the little girl that he had loved so much. It worked out, though, because she could not have said the words out loud if she'd wanted to. She tried hard not to even see the images, but it was difficult. They were fuzzy, but they were there.
"I'm sorry," she told him, shaking her head to try to clear the image and then looking up at him, immediately feeling guilty. "You're the last person I should tell any of that too."
His hand squeezed tighter around hers and he shook his head. "Trust me," he said sadly, "there is no scenario that I haven't imagined over the years. I can't imagine what it must have felt like in your dream… but if it makes you feel better, say whatever you need to say."
"Thanks," she replied quietly, leaning her head against his shoulder, "but I'm just trying to forget it. Maybe I'll be lucky and it'll be like the dreams that fade until you can't really remember them anymore."
Nodding in agreement, he thought for a second, his fingers still moving almost unconsciously over the back of her hand. "You just need a lot of good thoughts to block out the bad dreams…" he told her, as if it was obvious. "And the real life nightmares, too, of course." After all, some of the most horrible things she'd seen had been when she was awake.
Thanks to me, he thought before he could stop the thought from forming.
That won't help anything now, he reminded himself, exhaling slowly in an attempt to release the thought and the guilt that went with it right along with the air that was leaving his body.
"That's a lot of good thoughts," she said, picking her head up and glancing up at him.
He couldn't help but feel like she was looking for something in his face, almost like the idea that that many good thoughts could exist was a foreign concept. "That sounds like a challenge," he observed with surprise in his voice. "You don't think I can do it?"
Her face melted into a smile then. "If anyone can do it, it would be you," she told him sincerely.
"And I intend to," he told her. After all, he was nothing if not stubborn – or determined, if he wanted to frame his stubbornness more positively. The proof of this was his life – he'd been motivated by nothing but finding Taylor for more than twenty-five years, as painful as that had been. This new goal of saturating Jane's collection of thoughts with happy ones was a much more enjoyable one to work toward. She still had a lot of demons, and that wasn't going to change any time soon, but he would be there to help her fight them, just like she was already helping him with his.
Turning towards her on his right, he bent his right knee so that he could draw his leg up in front of him on the couch, turning to face her at almost a ninety degree angle. He hesitantly let go of her hand, resting his right arm along her shoulders, his left hand across the front of her so that his hands met at her right shoulder. Without a word she scooted closer to him, leaning her left temple against his chest, her legs tucking up on her right side so that she could snuggle closer to him as he kissed the top of her head.
Neither of them paid attention to what was on TV, the noise having long since faded into the background. They couldn't see each other's faces to know that they had both closed their eyes, but neither of them were asleep. They were simply enjoying each other's company and the closeness of that moment.
When Sarah walked into the room just before two o'clock, wearing her boots and snow pants but not yet the rest of her winter gear, they hadn't moved from that spot in more than an hour. Hearing the floors creaking, they both opened their eyes and looked up to see Sarah looking at them with a goofy grin on her face. Jane, feeling a little flustered by being caught there, tucked into Kurt so tightly, tried to pull herself up. Kurt, however, held onto her tightly so that within a few seconds she relaxed again. It wasn't as though she'd wanted to move in the first place, and Kurt was clearly not letting go of her for his sister's benefit.
"You guys…" she said, shaking her head. "Seriously, stop being so cute."
"You ready to get started?" Kurt asked her, ignoring the good-natured teasing.
"Whenever you are," she told him.
"Ready for what?" Jane asked in confusion.
"It's a tradition we have that started when we were… how old?" Kurt asked Sarah.
She thought for a minute before shrugging her shoulders. "Barely old enough to hold a snow shovel," she replied.
Nodding, Kurt continued his explanation. "My dad devised this contest for us. He gave us each even patches of driveway, and we had to see who could shovel their side faster."
Despite the mention of Bill Weller, no one had seemed to flinch this time. Instead, Jane kept herself focused on the brilliance of the technique for getting the snow cleared. "That's a pretty good trick to play on your kids," she observed.
Sarah laughed in agreement. "Yeah, the patches of driveway that we had to clear got bigger as we did. By the time Kurt," she paused then, exchanging a knowing look with her brother, but continuing, "went away to military school, he were clearing pretty much the whole driveway by ourselves."
Ignoring the sensitive issue of their father, Jane smiled appreciatively. "That's pretty brilliant," she told them.
"Yeah, so now it's become a matter of bragging rights," Kurt told her. "We both know that we could do the whole thing individually – except, of course, why would we want to? – but we're going to split it and see who's the fastest. Living in different cities, and then even in the same city but with nothing to shovel, we've had to sit out this challenge for quite a while. So this is a long time coming. Whoever wins this one may get bragging rights for years to come."
Jane chuckled at the competitiveness that she could hear in both siblings' voices. It was very amusing to watch the two of them, though it gave her a slight twinge of regret over the fact that she and Roman had probably never had anything even close to that, and the way things now stood, with him without a memory and being held indefinitely by the FBI, probably never would. Their only common bonds, as far as she knew, were based on shared trauma.
Forcing herself back to the present, she focused with renewed determination on the feeling of Kurt's arms around her, realizing that this meant that he was probably getting ready to let go of her and get up to get ready for this strange snow shoveling grudge match.
"Is it still snowing?" Jane asked them, turning to try to look out one of the back windows.
"Yes, though not as hard," Sarah replied. "And I already looked," she told Kurt, "there's probably at least two feet of snow on the driveway. Probably more."
"Could be our biggest challenge yet," Kurt said. Jane swore there was a hint of excitement in his voice.
"You guys might be a little competitive at this game, I'm guessing?" Jane observed with a grin. She'd never have thought that shoveling snow could be viewed as a contest before, but knowing Kurt, it didn't actually seem like much of a surprise. It was just a shame that he was going to be getting up from where they were so comfortably sitting any second now.
"Alright," he said, squeezing his arms around Jane before reluctantly letting go of her, "I'm going to go suit up."
"What ever happened to Sawyer?" Jane asked Sarah as Kurt walked away from her slowly toward the front door.
"I think he's upstairs, in Christmas present heaven," Sarah replied. Then, looking at Kurt, she added, "We went way overboard on presents for him, again."
Kurt stopped and turned around, shrugging. "Well…" he said, dragging out the word as he grinned. He had no regrets about spoiling his nephew. Sawyer was a good kid, after all.
At that moment, Jane couldn't help but think once again of what a great dad Kurt was going to make… which inevitably led her to feel a sharp twinge in her chest at the thought of Allie, and of the daughter that he was going to have with her… Like everything else in her life, it was out of her control. There was nothing to be done about it, and dwelling on it wasn't going to help. She didn't dare harbor even a shadow of a hope that she could… No. She refused to even say the words in her head. After all, she was lucky to be where she was now. That was all she should be focusing on. Despite what Shepherd had once told her, there was nothing about the future that she felt that she could control.
Jane followed the two elder Wellers to the front hallway, where they were putting on every bit of winter outerwear they had. Kurt saw her standing there, watching them, and he shook his head at her.
"Don't even think about it, Jane," he told her firmly. His eyes told her, You've been outside half frozen enough already. Aloud he said, "This is between Sarah and me. No fair helping either side."
"Awww, that's so cute that you think I'd help you," she told him teasingly, leaning her shoulder against the wall on her right and grinning at him. Sarah chuckled and rolled her eyes as her brother's face grew predictably pink and he walked towards her, now wearing boots and snow pants.
Jane watched in amusement as he approached her. The butterflies in her stomach were fluttering madly again, but she stared at him evenly as if his proximity had no effect on her.
"So what are you saying, then?" he asked her in a low voice, stopping closer to her than he would've stood to talk to anyone else. The term personal space meant nothing just then. On the contrary, they very much enjoyed being in each other's personal space.
She just shrugged, looking up at him innocently as he stood within inches of her, forcing himself to keep his hands at his side.
"I didn't say a thing," she insisted innocently, enjoying the intensity with which he was looking in her eyes.
"I really wish we were outside, so I could throw snowballs at you two," Sarah said, standing by the door waiting for Kurt and pretending to be annoyed. In reality, she couldn't be happier for them. They were so cute it kind of made her want to throw up.
Kurt's unbreakable gaze, which had been fixed on Jane, was broken then, as they both looked at Sarah and laughed with embarrassment. His hand landed on Jane's arm just above her elbow, squeezing gently, before he let go to catch up with Sarah. Jane continued to watch the two with a wide smile, thinking about how happy she was, and what a good sport Sarah was being about this whole thing. After all, she doubted very much that Kurt had told her the whole story. What she must have thought of Jane based on whatever part of the story she did know… and yet, she had made Jane feel welcome at their family Christmas, and had been nothing but kind to her. Jane made a mental note to pull Sarah aside at some point before they left and thank her herself.
As she watched the siblings go outside, Jane chuckled to herself at the trash talk that was flying back and forth between them. Shivering at the cold air coming in through the open door, she moved into the front room, which had a window overlooking the driveway. She sat down on a chair next to the large window to watch their progress. As they had described, she saw them mark off halves of the driveway and stood, shovels at the ready, counting down to "Go!"
I can't believe I'm watching those two facing off over bragging rights on who would clear their side of the driveway first, she thought to herself, shaking her head and chuckling to herself. Jane couldn't help but think that Kurt had the advantage. After all, being an FBI agent meant being in very good shape. She'd sparred with him – hell, she'd actually fought him – before, after all, and she could confirm that this was, indeed, the case.
Poor Sarah, Jane thought. I don't think she knows what she's getting into.
Just then, the stairs overhead creaked, and Sawyer walked down them, his feet clomping loudly against the wood. "Mom!" he called as he came around the corner.
"Uh, she's outside," Jane called to him uncertainly.
"Jane?" Sawyer called, hearing her voice but not sure where it had come from.
"In here," she told him, and he followed the sound of her voice into the front room. "What are you—?" He stopped when he saw his mom and his uncle through the window, walking over by where Jane was sitting. "What are they doing?"
"They're apparently going to race and see who can clear off their side of the driveway faster," Jane told him.
Sawyer watched them skeptically for a minute. "Do you have brothers or sisters?" he asked her.
Jane hesitated for a second, still not used to knowing the answers to very many personal questions about herself. "A brother," she said, feeling proud that for once, the answer to a question about her wasn't 'I don't know.'
"I used to wish I had brothers or sisters," Sawyer said. "But are siblings always so… weird with each other?"
Jane laughed, shrugging her shoulders. "Everyone's different," she said, watching the two of them out the window. "My brother and I are nothing like them." Suddenly, she could feel Sawyer watching her, instead of Kurt and Sarah, and she wished that she'd stayed quiet and not attracted his attention. Though she felt silly, because she knew that he Sawyer was only ten, she braced herself for the interrogation that she was afraid was coming. Maybe she'd get lucky and—
"Are you and Uncle Kurt, like… boyfriend and girlfriend?" he asked her suddenly. Jane, completely shocked, couldn't breathe for just a second. How in the world was she going to navigate this conversation? She had yet to have anything like this conversation with Kurt. Hell, she had yet to think about it for herself.
Keep it simple, she told herself. Taking a deep breath and smiling at him, she replied, "We haven't really talked about it. Why?" She was pleased to say that she sounded a whole lot calmer than she felt.
Sawyer looked at her thoughtfully for a minute, then said, "My mom said that he loves you."
Jane tried to keep her face impassive, even as her heart thumped loudly in her chest and her palms began sweating.
He… what?
Oh, please, her inner voice said, more sarcastically than she'd ever heard it say anything. This is not a surprise. At this point, how can you have any doubts?
"She… did?" Jane had a million other questions, but she didn't dare ask any of them. This conversation was more than a little bit uncomfortable to start with, much less to be having it with Kurt's ten year old nephew, after all. "She told you that?" That question, at least, seemed safe. It didn't seem possible that Sarah could have said something like that… not to Sawyer.
"Well, not to me," he admitted slowly. "She was talking to her friend on the phone… I didn't mean to listen, it's just… this house is so quiet, and walls are so thin…" he stammered slightly, embarrassed. "I don't know who she was talking to, but she was talking about you and Uncle Kurt for sure. And she definitely said, 'he loves her.' That's all I know." He watched her for a few seconds, granting Jane a short reprieve to take in this information before asking, "Do you think he does?" His face was filled with innocent curiosity.
To say that Jane was flustered would be an understatement, of course. She wished just then that she could have been almost anywhere else so that she didn't have to answer any more questions about this, and she suddenly wondered how a ten year old boy could frighten her more than most of the terrorists that she had come up against since she crawled out of that bag in Times Square. She was pretty sure that she would almost have rather dealt with Sandstorm than this line of questioning.
"I don't know," Jane told him slowly, telling herself that this was the honest answer. "He's never told me."
Bullshit, the voice in her head said quickly. You know.
Sawyer looked at her, seeming surprised, for a minute, then asked, "But he never said that he didn't love you, did he?"
Jane felt herself flinch inside as she recalled some of more painful interactions they'd had over the last six months, keeping her face as impassive as possible. Kurt pulling a gun on her, then putting her in handcuffs… And then, their "reunion," the knock-down, drag out fight in that grimy motel hallway not long after she'd finally escaped from the CIA hellhole in Oregon... Overhearing his words to Zapata in the hallway that day… Look, I don't like working with her any more than you do. I don't like being in the same room as her… No, he'd never said that he didn't love her, but he'd certainly given her a few reasons to feel that way.
Of course, she wasn't exactly innocent. She'd told him enough lies to last a lifetime. The fact that she'd done it to protect him… well, in the end it seemed that that hadn't been quite enough to fix things, at the time.
Hell, if anyone had said anything about love, it had been her, and somehow unsurprisingly, it had come at the worst time possible – in the middle of a shoot-out with a scared teenager. Those words also sprung quickly to her mind.
I know... this doesn't make any sense right now. But it is possible to lie to someone and still love them very much. She'd looked him in the eye, willing him to understand…
All this went through her head within a few seconds as her eyes had darted away from Sawyer's face. Feeling him looking at her, she smiled at him and said, "No, he never said that."
Still studying her carefully, Sawyer was continued to chew on the information he'd gotten from her. Jane wished fervently that this particular conversation would end, and tried in vain to think of a way to change the subject. The problem was, her mind was now frozen on this particular topic, despite how badly she wanted not to think about it.
"Do you love him?" Sawyer's words cut through her thoughts and she looked up, slightly in shock.
I certainly should have expected that one, she thought as she scrambled to think of how to answer, knowing that her answer very well could get back to Kurt.
"I…" she said, her words stuck in her throat. She glanced out the window at the pair, who were still shoveling furiously. How am I supposed to answer that question? she demanded silently of herself.
Snapping out of it and looking back at Sawyer, she noticed a curious look on his face. "I don't know," she sighed, forcing herself to smile and knowing that this was not the most honest answer to the question. However, Kurt's ten year old nephew was not the first person to whom she could confess any love for Kurt that she may or may not have, after all.
Sawyer just nodded, still smiling as though he knew something that she didn't. "Okay," he said lightly, and walked out of the room, having finally, mercifully, appeared to tire of the conversation.
Well that could have gone better, Jane thought, watching the Weller siblings continue to shovel snow and glancing over her shoulder, almost afraid that she would see Sawyer returning with follow up questions.
She thought about going in the kitchen to make some tea, but she wasn't sure where the curious ten year old had gone, and her preference at that moment was to keep a little bit of distance between the two of them, lest he think of any more interesting questions that he wanted to ask her. She shook her head, thinking that after all of the FBI and CIA interrogations she'd been subjected to over time, Sawyer's had been even more nerve racking than most of them.
Because you were lying this time, the voice in her head said.
I was not, she thought quickly.
Whatever you say, the voice replied in amusement.
It was cold in the front room by the window, despite the heat working just fine, so eventually Jane did stand up and walk back to the kitchen, from which she could see Sawyer engrossed in something on TV in the family room. She quietly made herself some tea and sat down at the kitchen table, staring at the swirling steam that rose from the hot water. The leaves inside the tea bag sent colored ripples out into the mug as she dunked it in and out, until she finally let it sit still to steep. Her hands wrapped gently around the mug for a few seconds, until it felt too hot, and then let go, backing off by about an inch to wait a minute until her hands cooled enough to repeat the action.
Finally her tea was cool enough for her to take a sip, and she felt the liquid warming her insides. It felt as though Sarah and Kurt had been outside for much longer than the thirty minutes that the clock told her they had, and she wondered how much longer they would be. This was, after all, the longest time she'd been away from him, not including the time when they were sleeping, or supposed to be sleeping and wandering into a blizzard…
You have it bad, the voice in her head told her. You definitely love him. It's pretty obvious, and this should just one more example.
Ignoring the voice in her head, she stood up from the table with her tea and walked back to the front room to see how much progress they'd made outside. The driveway was now finished, and Jane wondered who had won the contest. Now it appeared that they were clearing off Kurt's car, digging it out of the snowdrift that had built up on and around it. From what she could tell, it looked like they were having a good time, despite the freezing temperatures and the snow that was still falling on them, though now only lightly.
She stood by the window and watched them, sipping her tea. After all, it wasn't as though there was much else to do.
There's a good chance they'll want some hot chocolate when they come in, she suddenly thought to herself. The idea that she could do something helpful, after how wonderful they'd both been to her that weekend, made her smile, and she was back in the kitchen before she knew it. Setting down her own tea, she took out two mugs and set them on the table in the middle of the room, emptying hot chocolate mix into them and setting out spoons and marshmallows. She'd boiled water recently, so the water in the kettle was still relatively hot, but she turned the dial to warm to at least keep the water from cooling off any further.
With everything set up in the kitchen, she picked up her tea, which was now almost empty, and went back to the front room to check on their progress again.
You're really impatient, aren't you? the voice in her head asked teasingly.
I'm just curious, she thought defensively.
Of course you are, the voice told her soothingly.
Looking up at the yard in front of her, she saw Sarah and Kurt finally on their way back up the now cleared driveway. Before she even realized it, she had moved back into the doorway, where the front room connected to the hall, leaning against the trim over the doorway in anticipation, feeling a grin on her face.
You so obviously love him, the voice in her head said, almost triumphantly.
Go away, she told it, but she could feel herself smiling, possibly even blushing a little.
Seconds later the door opened, and a blast of cold air accompanied the Weller siblings in from the cold.
"Hey, guys," Jane said in greeting. "How'd it go? I watched for a while, but it was cold by the window."
"He cheated," Sarah said, shooting an icy glare at Kurt, even while grinning at him.
Kurt looked at her in mock surprise, an innocent grin on his face. "I'm offended that you would say that," he told his sister in a voice that said that he was hurt by her accusation. "I don't need to cheat. I'm just that good."
They grumbled at each other for several more minutes as they took off their layers of snow gear, once again making a pile that would go to the dryer. After a particularly biting remark from Kurt, which had been said so quietly that Jane hadn't even managed to hear it, Sarah punched him playfully in the arm. When she then began to laugh and rolled her eyes, and Jane bit her lip to hold in her laughter at the two of them. "You're the worst," Sarah told him, smacking his arm again. Having gotten herself quickly out of her snow gear, she walked quickly toward the hallway bathroom. "Excuse me for a minute, guys."
Seeing a chance at a few seconds of relative privacy, Kurt, who was still wearing boots and his snow pants, but had removed the rest of his cold weather gear, walked over to Jane and stopped only inches from her, once again squarely in her personal space. Uncharacteristically quickly, he bent down to put his face only inches from hers – he only had a minute or so, after all – and was surprised when Jane leaned forward the last little bit of the way to kiss him. When she leaned back just a few seconds later, he was looking at her in amused surprise.
"What was that for?" he asked quietly, his hands having perched lightly on her waist without his even noticing until that moment.
She just shrugged, watching him as he smiled broadly at her. Why do I have a feeling that my cheeks are as pink as his? she wondered. Of course, her cheeks weren't flushed from the cold air, but from something else.
Still holding her mug in her right hand, she put her left hand up to his cheek, moving her fingers gently over the scruff on his face. It felt just as cold as she expected, and he leaned into the warmth of her hand immediately.
"Wow, you're really warm," he told her, his eyes not leaving hers. Just then they heard the water in the sink in the bathroom nearby, and she reluctantly dropped her hand from his face, as he let his hands fall from her waist. His smile, however, continued to hold her eyes on him.
Damn you and that smile, she thought, knowing that she was under his spell – not that she wanted to be released. He took a step back so that he could continue getting out of his boots and his snow pants just as Sarah came out of the bathroom, immediately grinning at their proximity despite the fact that they weren't touching at that moment.
Feeling her scrutiny and wanting to distract from it, Jane asked, "Do you guys want hot chocolate? I have everything set up in the kitchen."
"That sounds good, thanks," Sarah said, starting in that direction with a knowing smile aimed at them once more before turning around. Kurt had stepped back quickly when Jane turned towards Sarah, seeing that she was distracted, and was now out of his snow gear. Stepping toward her once more, he reached for her hand. Despite the fact that his was ice cold, she took it with only the slightest flinch to show that the cold had affected her, as they started down the hall behind Sarah.
"Sorry, my hand must feel ridiculously cold to you," he said quietly to her.
"It sure does," she replied, then squeezed it tighter.
In the entryway to the kitchen, he let her hand go so that she could walk across the room and get the kettle, bringing it to the table and pouring steaming water into the two cups that were sitting there as Sarah and Kurt sat down on opposite sides of the table. Both murmured "Thanks," then stirred their hot chocolate and gingerly put their cold fingers around the mugs.
"Are you having some?" Sarah asked, looking over her shoulder at Jane. She had set her own mug down on the counter and was taking out another tea bag.
"No, but I'm going to have some more tea," Jane replied, pouring water over the tea bag and bringing it to the table.
"Hey Sawyer, do you want hot chocolate?" Sarah called. Her son looked up from where he lay under a blanket on the couch.
"That would mean moving, right?" he asked, looking completely disinclined to do so.
"Yes it would," Sarah replied brightly, knowing that Sawyer already knew the answer and that he was trying to see what he could get away with.
"Okay then… No, thank you. I'm good right here," he replied, returning his attention to whatever he was watching on TV.
The adults chuckled, all of them quiet as they focused on the warmth of their drinks. After only a minute or so, however, Sarah stood up, picking up her mug and saying, "I'm still freezing. I'm going to go take a hot shower." She stood up from the table and hesitated for a few seconds, grinning down at the two of them, then turned and walked back down the hall towards the stairs. Once again, Jane and Kurt were mostly alone. Kurt was pretty sure that his sister was doing it on purpose – giving them space at every opportunity.
Kurt turned in his chair to face her, laying his left arm across the back of her chair as she leaned back. She was still replaying the conversation that she'd had with Sawyer in her head – it had been… interesting.
"You okay?" he asked her, sensing that she seemed distant. She looked up and glanced over her shoulder at him, realizing that she'd been lost in thought.
"Yeah," she said, a smile returning to her face as she focused on the present time.
My mom said that he loves you. It was as though Sawyer's voice was stuck on repeat in her head. She understood the words, of course, but for some reason their meaning couldn't quite penetrate her brain. It just wasn't possible…
Wait… you're saying that it's a surprise? the voice in her head asked in annoyance. Come on, haven't I been saying that since the beginning?
Not a surprise… not exactly… she thought.
So, you don't believe it? the voice asked. She expected the tone with which it spoke to her to harden then, but to her surprise, it did the opposite.
Come on… deep down you have to know…
It's not like he's said anything of the sort, she thought defensively. And besides, he's a decent guy. He treats everyone with respect. It's not as though that's rare.
The way he is with you is not just respect and you know it, the voice countered. You've seen the way he looks at you… that he always has.
Deciding to try to ignore the voice in her head for the moment, she scooted towards him instead, so that his arm moved from the chair to her back. Their chairs were already pushed together, so she barely noticed when she slid from hers partway onto his. As she leaned against him, she sighed, her eyes darting toward the doorway that led to the hall, but they could already hear the water running in the bathroom upstairs so once again, for the moment they had relative privacy.
"Sarah was grilling me about… us," he said in a low voice, just beside her ear. Feeling her stiffen notably, he pulled her a little closer. He took her right hand in his and rested it on her own leg in front of her, then let it go so that he could use his fingers to trace, to the best of his ability with fingers that were so much bigger than the tiny lines, the honeycomb pattern on the back of her hand.
"What about us?" she asked, trying to feign lack of curiosity.
Chuckling softly at her attempt at appearing disinterested, he replied, "Oh, you know… she asked me what was 'going on' with us…"
"Oh, yeah?" she asked, appearing even tenser than the previous time she'd spoken. "What'd you tell her?"
"I told her," he began slowly, "that after being a jerk for the past several months, on Friday, just before our office holiday party, I started to realize how stupid I'd been to shut you out… and that since then we'd been working on… figuring things out."
"That's a good answer," she replied, thinking that he'd gracefully dodged the question. Part of her was glad to be spared the embarrassment of a more specific answer – one way or the other – the other part wished she knew the real answer.
Chuckling softly, she decided to tell him what Sawyer had asked her. Well, part of it, anyway. "Sawyer asked me if we were 'boyfriend and girlfriend,'" she said shyly. She hadn't been planning to bring it up, at least not yet, because it was such an awkward subject – what were they to each other, anyway? They had never had a label other than the standard, official, work related ones… but nothing about their relationship had ever been standard.
He chuckled and asked her, "So what did you say?"
"Oh, uh, well… nothing nearly as eloquent as what you told Sarah. I told him that we hadn't talked about it… because, well, we haven't," she told him, wishing the floor would open up and swallow her and save her from having to continue with this conversation. Out of sheer terror of his silence, or alternatively, of the chance that he would try to fill the silence and tell her something that she didn't want to hear, she began talking again quickly. "I mean, you know, it's only been less than three days since we've even been speaking to each other if we weren't being forced to, so of course… I mean, I'm not an expert or anything but it seems like that's—"
"Jane," he said, leaning around the side of her to try look her in the face, silencing her with only the sound of her own name. He waited until she looked over her shoulder at him before he continued. It was only reluctantly that she raised her eyes to look at him, and he saw the hesitation there. "Do you remember what I told you on the day we first met Rich Dotcom? When we were dancing?"
She remembered they had talked about lots of things, and she wasn't sure which one it was to which he was referring. "Well I remember that I bombarded you with personal questions that day so… Which thing should I be remembering?" she asked, blushing, as she thought back to that day. She really had been over the line, she now realized, and yet he hadn't brushed off any of her questions, even though it would have been understandable if he had. No one else on the team would have gotten answers to the things that she had, and after getting to know him better, she now knew it.
Smiling fondly at her, he said, "The part where I said I was too choosy," he replied, his voice dropping to just above a whisper.
Chills ran down her spine at the thought of what he was hinting at. "Of course," she replied before she could think about her response or try to downplay just how well she remembered that he'd said that. She'd replayed that conversation over and over in her head afterwards, after all. She also remembered that he'd said that in reply to her question about whether he'd ever been married.
"Well… that hasn't changed. If anything, it's gotten worse." He looked at her watching him, suddenly appearing nervous as she watched him over her shoulder and, seeing the perplexed look on her face, he just shook his head and smiled. Her unassuming nature was one of the many things he loved about her, though he did wish that she didn't find it so impossible to believe anything positive about herself.
Give it time, he told himself. You can work on that.
When he saw that she was still looking at him in confusion, he decided to stop hinting and just spit it out. "It's always been you," he told her simply.
She opened her mouth to point out that there had also been Allie and Nas in the time that he'd known her, so that wasn't really accurate, but he was ready.
"And I know what you're going to say," he told her confidently, shaking his head and looking sheepish. "They had nothing to do with it. It was… complicated… between us, then."
She grimaced at what may have been the understatement of the year, looking away from him. Which time could he be referring to? she wondered. When I lied to you because Sandstorm threatened to kill you if I didn't? Or when you found out I wasn't Taylor and let the CIA torture me? Or when you brought me back to the FBI and everyone treated me like a criminal for trying to save all of your lives? Yes, I'd say that things were complicated between us.
She stiffened, and his fingers, which had been tracing the honeycomb tattoo, now curled around the back of her right hand protectively, holding it tightly. This part was important, and he knew it.
"I thought that I would… forget… how I'd felt about you… if enough time passed. If I..." He hung his head, embarrassed, then looked back up at her slowly to find her watching him, looking sad. "But I didn't. I couldn't, not even when I thought I wanted to. Not even when I was angry… They weren't… you… And for a long time I told myself that that was a good thing, that I didn't know who you were. I'd almost convinced myself of it."
He took a deep breath and continued. "So when you came back… No, when we made you come back… It was only then that I realized that I did know you. Maybe not in the way I thought I had, but in the way that mattered… It was like… I don't know. Suddenly I could see it, see you, the real you… the same one I saw in the beginning. And I know it's only been a couple days since I got my head back on straight… but I already know. It took me a long time, but I finally figured it out…" He shrugged, smiling a reserved, very un-Kurt Weller-like smile that she had to call shy.
Kurt? Shy? It didn't make sense.
Then, in a whisper he said, "I don't want anyone else, Jane… just you… so you can call that whatever you want."
Stunned, she sat and blinked at him. He'd just said a lot of things that she hadn't expected, after all, and she was more than a little bit overwhelmed. She'd always felt a pull towards him, but then after he'd arrested her… it was like he said – in her anger, she'd wanted to move on, had thought that she hated him… But it had never been that simple. She'd resigned herself to the fact that he'd hated her, that what had almost happened was as close as they were going to get, and that she'd be lucky if they even came out the other side of the mess they'd made of things as friends. More likely, they'd be acquaintances with a shared, painful past of making mistakes and miscommunicating. She would just have to accept that fact, as much as it hurt.
And then, Friday had come, and her world had turned upside down. And now it was Monday, and she didn't know what to think. He'd just confessed something so emotional to her, so heavy, and at the same time that she should have been – that she wanted to be – bursting with happiness, she was terrified. Because she already knew what it felt like to lose the thing that she'd wanted – him – even though technically she'd never had him. So how much worse would it hurt to lose him if he was actually hers?
He watched her carefully, knowing that he'd just overwhelmed her with his words, but not regretting them. They'd needed to be said, and he'd been holding them in for what felt like an eternity, even though he'd really only realized a lot of it a few minutes before.
Drawing her knees up in front of her on the chair, she pulled her arms around them tightly, leaning her left cheek against her knees and watching him angle his face so that he could look at hers. Even as her arms were clamped around her knees, his right hand was still holding onto her right hand, so it was now wrapped around the front of her. He now wrapped his left arm around her left side, making a circle around her with his arms.
Okay, now backtrack and simplify what you just said, he told himself. You had to know that that would be a little much for her all at once.
"Is that okay with you?" he asked. "If I don't want it to be about anyone but you?"
Her eyes found his, and he saw the fear there. It's incredible, he thought, that someone who would, and has, rushed toward danger – loaded weapons, bombs, or any other manner of thing that could kill her – in order to save a team member, a perfect stranger, or even for someone who had actively wronged her, without a second thought… is scared of her own emotions.
It's not without good reason, the voice in his head reminded him. She doesn't have any good memories of trusting people. I don't think she did even before her memory was wiped.
Her face relaxed slightly into a hint of a smile, and she nodded, but she still didn't raise her head. "Yeah," she whispered. And even though she knew that he would have told her she didn't have to say anything else, she found that she wanted to – even though doing so wasn't easy. "It's the same for me," she whispered, forcing the words out. "It was always only about you, too."
Leaning down and kissing her temple, he smiled and pulled his arms more tightly around her. For a minute, she had trouble understanding what she was feeling, because somehow she felt both more terrified and yet safer than she ever had before – at that same time.
After that, neither of them said anything. They could hear the loud whir of Sarah's hair dryer upstairs, and knew that their time "alone" wasn't going to last much longer, but that was alright. They'd sorted out something that was very important, after all. They hadn't exactly addressed the issue of what the label on their relationship was, but that was almost secondary. After all, they'd talked about what they were to each other, which was even more important.
He rested his forehead against the top of her head, closing his eyes since his face was buried in her hair anyway. For once, things made sense to him, and it was a relief that he hadn't even realized that he'd needed.