Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)
By the time they had stopped for breakfast, which, because of the lateness of the hour, they didn't have the luxury of lingering over, and then made it to the office, it was after 8:00am. While for many people this was still early, for anyone on Weller's team, this was a noticeably late arrival time. Luckily for them, he was the boss. However, it didn't mean they didn't get knowing looks from the rest of the team. The fact that they walked in with matching large cups of coffee didn't exactly make things look coincidental, either. Not that the fact that something was happening between them was a secret, of course, especially after the holiday party and then the commonly known fact, at least among their five person team, that they'd spent the weekend together.
Really, knowing looks were going to be a given.
It was Wednesday morning, December twenty-eighth, smack in the middle of the week after Christmas. While retail stores were generally busy that week, with shoppers exchanging unwanted Christmas presents, many other sectors of the economy were quieter than usual. While there were a higher than usual number of agents taking time off that week, even at the NYO, it was not necessarily a slow week for the FBI. As always, it depended on what was going on around the country, foremost in New York City and the surrounding areas.
So far that week, they'd been lucky. He'd imagined that he would have had to field calls while out in Clearfield, but his phone had been blissfully quiet. The idea that he would have been able to take several days off in a row and not have to manage a crisis of any kind remotely, or be called back in early, was almost unheard of. It had seemed too good to be true, which left him wondering how long his luck would hold out. Within half an hour or their arrival in the office on Wednesday, he had his answer – his lucky streak was officially over.
Patterson had cracked another tattoo, which, after her long and complicated explanation, sent them searching for a lead, one that they ended up chasing across half the city before finally apprehending him in an abandoned warehouse in Brooklyn. It certainly wasn't the ideal way to spend a day that followed a night of only a few hours of sleep, of course, but both Jane and Kurt had been in the situation of working of far less than enough sleep before – Jane mostly because of her frequent nightmares, and Kurt because of his tendency to just generally push himself too hard when it came to work – so it wasn't anything they couldn't handle.
They'd both stepped outside, along with Reade and Zapata, while the techs collected evidence inside the warehouse. They were waiting for Patterson to check in with them about a suspicion of hers, after she looked deeper into the connections held by the suspect they'd just apprehended. After that, they would decide whether they needed to continue their investigation elsewhere immediately, or head back to the office. Reade and Zapata had walked towards the far corner of the building, and appeared to be in the midst of a heated argument. Meanwhile, one of the techs came to the door and told Kurt that there was something he should see, just as Jane's phone began to ring.
"Go ahead and take it," Kurt told her as Jane frowned at her phone. She nodded distractedly, not looking up as he walked inside, waiting until she was ten feet farther along the outer wall of the building in the opposite direction of Zapata and Reade before she answered it.
Jane didn't recognize the phone number, which didn't necessarily mean anything, but it was always a cause for suspicion. With the past that she had, she couldn't be too cautious. "Hello?" she said into the phone.
It turned out that the call had been a wrong number – or that was what the caller said, anyway – and she turned around, shaking her head, walking back toward the door to catch up with Kurt. Before she could take more than a few steps, however, a thundering noise echoed through the warehouse beside her. The sound of splintering metal, wood and glass could be heard from inside, though the wall beside them remained intact. For a split second, Jane froze in her tracks, and Reade and Zapata spun around and looked at her in fear as time seemed to stand still, after which all three of them started running full speed toward the door.
Jane made it there first, having been the closest, and what she saw as she rounded the corner took her breath away. Something in the far corner of the large, open building must have exploded, because there was now a significant portion of the two nearby walls missing in that corner, debris everywhere, and a large pile of rubble where the walls had once been. The small group of techs, each with various degrees of injuries, were now scrambling madly in what seemed like every direction. Jane simply couldn't take in all of the details at once to know where to run to first.
Where's Kurt? It was the only thing she was interested in, and she simply couldn't process anything else until she knew that one fact.
She'd frozen in place about fifteen feet inside the doorway, her eyes darting around madly, not seeing Kurt anywhere. Sprinting toward the pile that seemed to have been created when the explosion was set off, she saw that one of the techs was trapped under a large metal beam, which pinned down his leg. Several others were attempting to assess his condition, crowding around him.
"Did someone call 911?" It was Zapata, suddenly standing beside Jane and yelling to the techs. They looked around at each other, shaking their heads, so Zapata took out her phone and did so immediately.
The next thing Jane knew, Zapata had grabbed onto her arm and was dragging her in another direction. It turned out that that direction was towards Kurt, with Reade close behind them. To the trio's horror, Kurt lay on the ground, appearing to have been flung from the immediate area of debris by the force of the blast. He didn't seem to have hit the wall, since he was closer to the section of the wall that was still standing, but from his position, it seemed possible that he'd hit the ground hard. He was unconscious, and there was a growing puddle on blood beneath him. Jane fell on her knees beside him, Reade and Zapata standing behind her in horror.
Using her fingertips to check his pulse, Jane was relieved to know that Kurt was alive. Still, he was unconscious and bleeding from somewhere that was not immediately apparent, and it was impossible to tell the severity from just looking at him. She grabbed his hand and began saying his name, tears streaming down her cheeks.
In an unspoken agreement, Reade went to the door of the building to wait for the EMTs and direct them inside, while Zapata stood behind Jane. "The ambulance is on its way, Jane," she told the other woman, who barely registered that Zapata was even speaking to her. "They should be here in just a few minutes."
Jane was frantic, of course. This can't be happening. This isn't happening. Please be okay. Please. I can't… Please…. The string of pleas became like a chant in her head as she focused solely on the man in front of her, who still had shown no signs of life other than a weak pulse. The scrambling in the rest of the room, the shouts, the calls for them to evacuate until they could determine whether it was actually safe for them all to be there… She heard none of it.
When the EMTs finally arrived, it felt as though it had been hours. In reality, it had been about five minutes. Zapata had to pry Jane away from Weller, forcing her to let go of his hand so that they could assess him and get him onto a stretcher. More agents were already arriving on the scene, with even more were en route. This was the biggest disaster they'd faced since the ill-fated Sandstorm raid, and the fact that the Assistant Director had been seriously injured left everyone else scrambling extra frantically to figure out what had happened. Zapata and Reade had hurriedly filled Patterson in, and she was already following up on what little information they had.
When the EMTs were ready to take Kurt to the hospital a few minutes later, Jane asked to ride along in the ambulance. One of them looked skeptical, as if he was about to say no, but a blonde woman in an EMT uniform, who seemed to be the stern man's partner, looked at her kindly and agreed.
"Thank you," Jane replied, flooded with relief.
"Let's go," the man said sternly.
Jane glanced back at Zapata, who was watching the scene, biting her lip. "We'll meet you there, Jane," she told her, to which Jane nodded and then started toward the door, trailing behind the EMTs and an unconscious Kurt on a stretcher.
The ride to the hospital was endless. Jane sat in a seat crammed in along the side of the back section of the ambulance, clutching Kurt's hand as if for dear life. She couldn't even find words to mumble in her head, the ache in her chest was so intense. All she could do was hold onto him, leaning as far toward the stretcher on which Kurt was secured as possible. If she'd thought she could have gotten away with taking off her seatbelt, she would have moved closer to him, but it was obvious that the jolting of the ambulance would have thrown her against a wall sooner than later.
At the hospital, she'd been directed to the waiting room and told to do the very thing she couldn't bear to do – wait – while they assessed his condition.
"Are you family?" they'd asked her.
She'd just shook her head sadly, knowing that she would've had better access to him if she had been family. "No," she whispered, what little strength she had felt. The nurse she'd been speaking to looked at her kindly.
"Alright, honey, I know it's hard, but try and relax. We'll take good care of him, and we'll let you know when we know something," she'd told her. Jane just nodded, sinking into the chair behind her, leaning over until her elbows dug into her knees, her head in her hands. She already knew from looking at him, from seeing just how serious his injuries had looked that it was going to be quite a while before she could see him. Too long. She didn't have any idea what was wrong, of course, but based on the fact that he'd been unconscious and the amount of blood around him, it seemed very serious. She winced at the thought, struggling to take in enough oxygen to keep herself breathing.
This was not how it was supposed to go.
And yet, she'd always known what a large part danger played in their jobs. Kurt had been lucky enough to come out of dangerous situations unscathed – or close to it – many, many times. How many times had they almost died, since they'd known each other alone, both separately and together? How many times had he been shot at or nearly blown up? Too many to count, even in the time that Jane had known him.
Yes, danger being a part of the job was a given, especially considering how often Kurt seemed to remove his vest and walk into danger with his hands in the air as a sign of good faith. Good faith. The man used good faith when dealing with seemingly all manner of individuals who were not necessarily acting under that same pretense. It really was a wonder that he was still alive. It was amazing they hadn't ended up here, like this, before now.
Of course, that didn't make Jane feel any better. Because they were here now… and she didn't know what was going on or whether it was going to be okay.
She felt someone sit down beside her, then a faint sigh. It was as if it was very far away, even though she knew that it had come from the chair beside her. It didn't matter who it was or what they wanted. Unless someone was coming to talk to her about Kurt, she didn't care what anyone had to say.
"Jane," came the whispered voice. It was Reade. She didn't move, just remained hunched over, attempting to keep her breathing steady. "Have they told you anything?"
At that question she raised her head slowly to look at him. He had known that she was distraught, but he was genuinely surprised at just how upset she looked when she slowly looked up at him. Her face was blotchy, and the skin around her eyes was red and puffy, making her distress all the more obvious.
For a few seconds they just looked at each other, before Jane realized that she had yet to answer his question. Shaking her head sadly, she looked down once again. "No," she replied, her voice hoarse from lack of use and possibly from the heavy dust that had hung in the air at the warehouse after the explosion. At that moment, the state of her throat was the absolute last thing on her mind.
The more he looked at her, the more Reade couldn't help but notice that Jane was in rough shape. Besides being able to see that she'd been crying – which he'd known already – he noticed that her face was smeared with dirt, as were her clothes, and she had what appeared to be quite a bit of Weller's blood on the legs of her pants, the knees especially, where she'd knelt beside him, as well as on her hands, and now, thanks to the way she'd been sitting, also smeared on her face.
While Reade and Zapata had also been on the scene, they had gone back to the office after they'd finished there, since their boss being rushed to the hospital had sent everyone into a bit of a tailspin. Pellington had demanded an in-person briefing immediately. As it was, they'd had to speak for the fact that Jane wasn't there as well. Since they all stored extras of everything at work, for this or any other emergency, the two of them had had a minute to change. Therefore, the difference between the state that Jane was in, compared to the way Reade looked, was dramatic.
"Hey, you should go wash up a little," he told her gently. "You've got blood… all over you." Jane's eyes widened as she looked down at her hands and arms, which she noticed for the first time were indeed covered in blood. Still, she looked around with concern, then shook her head.
"No, I don't want to go anywhere," she told him.
"Jane, it'll only take a minute. I'll stay here and wait for word, in case they come out to say anything. Please?" he asked gently. "When they let you in to see him, you don't want to have blood all over you. They'll make you wash up before you let you in there, anyway… They've got to keep the place sanitary, you know, with all the sick people around…" Reade and Jane hadn't always been on good terms, but with what Reade had been through lately, he'd been far more sympathetic to Jane than he used to be. She didn't know why, of course, only that he was much kinder to her than he had been when they'd first met. Between his new, gentler manner and the fact that his words, while frustrating, actually did make a lot of sense, Reade was able to convince Jane to go into the bathroom nearby and at least wash Kurt's blood off her hands.
He'd watched the wheels turning in her head as she considered what he'd said, then, to his relief, he'd seen her nod her head slowly. She had stood up and walked around the corner, following the signs that said Restrooms and disappearing from sight.
Jane found the women's room empty, and was slightly shocked by her own reflection. Reade had not been kidding – she really did have blood all over her. There wasn't much she could do about the state of her clothes, which were caked with both blood and dirt, but at least she could wash her hands and face, and scrub what she could off of her forearms.
Looking at herself in the mirror again after she'd cleaned herself up, she begged for this to be some sort of nightmare. There was simply no way that this could actually be happening. At least, she truly hoped not. Still, since she didn't immediately wake up from the dream that she'd hoped that she was having when she insisted to herself that she should, she sighed heavily and hurried back out to the waiting room, where Reade was sitting and staring at the TV screen mounted in the corner near the ceiling.
"Anything?" Jane asked anxiously.
He just shook his head, hating to have to disappoint her, but thinking that no news was better than bad news when you were in a hospital waiting room. He kept that thought to himself, however.
"I asked Patterson to have an agent bring you a change of clothes," he told her kindly. She just nodded dejectedly, assuming the position she'd been in almost as long as she'd been waiting – almost two hours already, in total – her head in her hands, her eyes squeezed shut.
"Thanks," she mumbled, honestly not caring what she was wearing. It didn't matter. None of it mattered, not if something happened to Kurt.
"We have pretty much every agent working on this, Jane," he told her quietly, hoping that she was listening. "We're going to find out what happened and find whoever's responsible." She just nodded weakly, knowing that this was supposed to make her feel better. Suddenly all she could think of was Patterson, that day so long ago when they'd talked in the locker room, when she'd been dismayed to learn that catching David's killer hadn't brought her closure. The blonde's words that day echoed in her ears.
I thought that if... if I... solved this, and if I found his killer, I would feel... uh... I... But I feel the same. Just... empty. Like solving this didn't change anything.
She knew that Reade was trying to reassure her that they would get to the bottom of what happened, and that that was supposed to help… but she also knew that the only thing that was going to help her was Kurt. She needed Kurt to be okay. After all, how in the world would she go on otherwise? There were too many reasons why she needed him, and none of them could be described in words. She felt them all, however, and at the moment those feelings were threatening to crush her.
Reade knew that there was nothing he could say that would make her feel any better, so he simply sat there, feeling useless but knowing that he was doing the only thing he could do by keeping her company. All he could do was to make sure that she was physically okay. He shuddered to think about how Jane would cope – or not cope, to be more accurate – if Weller…
No, he told himself quickly. Don't.
Time ticked by slowly, and he got the feeling that while he would probably be relieved by Zapata or Patterson or another agent and sent home at some point, there would be no telling Jane to leave.
"I'm going to get some coffee. You want some?" he asked, standing up and stretching.
Lifting her head out of her hands, she looked up at him wearily, shaking her head. "No, thanks," she whispered.
The team had seen Jane through a lot since she'd appeared in Times Square, but as much as it had seemed like they'd seen her at her worst, Reade couldn't help but think that they'd been wrong. This had to be her worst.
"You want anything?" he asked, knowing that the answer would be no, but wishing that he could do something for her.
Instead of a smile, she gave him a pained look. "No, thanks, Reade," she whispered.
"I'll be right back," he told her quietly, following the signs for the cafeteria.
Jane had been glad for Reade's company, but she also felt a certain kind of relief when he left. Even though she was far from alone in the waiting room, everyone there were strangers, and no one seemed concerned with her enough to engage her in any kind of conversation. For this she was grateful. Granted, her tattoos made her stand out, which meant that she could feel plenty of people staring at her, but really, she was used to that. At that moment, she didn't care who stared at her, as long as they didn't talk to her. After all, if they stared, she could simply close her eyes and pretend that they weren't there. She'd had lots of practice at doing that. If she waited long enough, the people who were staring would go away, or they would stop. Either one was fine with her.
Reade returned from the cafeteria and pushed a paper cup into her hands. "Here, take it," he told her, gently but firmly. "You need something in you." She put her hands around the coffee, grateful for the warmth of the cup, and for the fact that Reade had ignored her when she'd said she didn't want coffee. It shouldn't have surprised her too much, she supposed, since he was an FBI agent and it was the first time she'd ever turned down coffee before. It made sense that he was astute enough to realize that she hadn't actually meant it when she'd said she didn't want any – even though even she hadn't realized that this was the case.
She nodded, opening her eyes enough to look at the cup she was now holding. "Thanks," she whispered. He sat down in the chair beside her once again, handing her a bag of some kind of plain crackers as well.
"This, too," he said simply, to which she nodded and put it at the floor by her feet. Coffee first. After that, she'd see. At the moment she wasn't sure how much she could push her stomach without making herself throw up.
They sat in silence, time ticking by without Jane noticing. She drank her coffee slowly, barely tasting it. Mostly, she felt the warmth of it as she drank, appreciating it at least for that.
She was lost in her thoughts – or, more accurately, the swirling haze of her mind which was mostly absent of thoughts – when she heard hushed voices beside her and she slowly looked up. Patterson was sitting down on the other side of Reade, their heads close together as they talked quietly. Jane looked back down, since they didn't seem to be talking to her. It was nice that the blonde was there, of course, but it didn't change anything, and it didn't do anything to make her worry less about Kurt.
It had been hours – she didn't even know how many, any more – and they still hadn't heard anything. She was beginning to feel the urge to grab the next doctor she saw and shake them violently until news about Kurt's condition spilled out of them. After all, surely they knew something by now. Hadn't they been working on him for hours? He was the damn Assistant Director of the FBI, for God's sake! Weren't they going to do something for him?
Calm down, the voice in her head told her evenly. Getting worked up isn't going to help.
Neither is staying calm, she thought bitterly, feeling tears threatening suddenly behind her eyes. She'd done a good job of reigning them in so far, since they'd arrived at the hospital, but she wasn't sure how much longer she'd be able to make that claim. It suddenly felt as if their reappearance was imminent.
There was movement beside her, and she looked up quickly, realizing with disappointment that it was only Reade standing up, as Patterson scooted over into the chair beside her. "Thanks, Patterson," he was saying. "You need anything?"
She shook her head, smiling at him weakly. "Nope, I'm good. Zapata will be here in a few more hours. You, please, go home and sleep for a little bit. We'll be okay here."
Reade just nodded his thanks, sighing heavily. "Alright, I'll see you both later. Jane?" Reade said, looking at Jane. She didn't want to, but she forced herself to look up at him, the offending tears that she'd been so hoping to avoid becoming closer and closer to reality as she did. "Weller's tough. It's going to take more than just an explosion to stop him." She nodded, not trusting her voice, and feeling herself flinch when the look on his face softened. She'd never seen Reade look so worried, even if it was about her and not about the person that he should actually be worried about. "He'll be okay," he added, looking as though he wanted to say more, but stopping there, at a loss for words.
He can't know that, she thought miserably, feeling herself on the verge again – of tears, of losing her composure completely, of losing her mind... of losing everything.
Somehow she kept the panic she felt inside from spilling out. Nodding at him, all she could manage was a weak, "Thanks, Reade." Hesitating, he looked down at the two women one more time and only after seeing Patterson's encouraging partial smile did he then turn and walk away.
Patterson was leaning forwards, matching Jane's position, and Jane didn't dare look at her. She could already feel tears leaking out of her eyes, and she knew that looking at Patterson, the most emotional one of all of them, would only make it worse. For her part, Patterson didn't know what the right thing to do was, but she made conversation regardless.
"Zapata wanted to relieve Reade," she said quietly, leaning her shoulder against Jane's, "but I insisted that it was my turn next. I told her to either get some rest, or keep working, and she could come and see Weller in a few hours, when he's awake." Jane just nodded, feeling her tears betraying her and disobeying her order not to show themselves. "He's going to be okay, Jane," Patterson whispered. Again, Jane kept her face straight ahead, which ended up being aimed toward the floor because she was hunched forwards, trying to deny the fact that she was now definitely crying again. She knew that Patterson meant well, but she wished that she would stop trying to reassure her. It wouldn't have been completely fine with her if Patterson would have just left, in fact.
Jane tried to sip what was left of the coffee that Reade had brought her, holding it in her left hand, but her throat felt like it was closing up and she found it almost impossible to choke down even a little bit more. It had gotten cold, anyway, and she put it on the floor by her feet. Once again she leaned forward, putting her head in her hands and pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes until she saw pinpricks of light in the darkness. They swam and swirled in front of her, telling her that she was pressing her hands too hard against her eyes, but she didn't care. So what? she asked herself. It doesn't matter.
Hey, don't be like that, she heard a voice in her head tell her. Kurt's voice. She'd thought she'd started to get herself under control, but her tears were now back full force, and her breathing was no longer under any semblance of control.
Patterson watched in dismay as Jane seemed to crumble before her eyes. She pulled her left arm around Jane's shoulders, pulling her into a hug. It was slightly awkward, but if anyone on the team was going to be the one to hug Jane, it was Patterson. "Jane, it's going to be okay," she whispered. "He's going to be okay." Her words sounded hollow even to her, however. After all, they'd all been with her when David had been killed, and they'd all been around when Borden had been exposed as the Sandstorm mole. It wasn't as though they didn't already know that things could go very, very wrong – and not just theoretically. No, there was no guarantee that Kurt would be okay.
Slowly realizing that, if nothing else, she didn't want to sob in a hospital waiting room, Jane forced herself to calm down. It took a few minutes, but she eventually regained her composure, still breathing hard but at least feeling her tears dry up – for the moment, anyway.
"Oh, Jane," Patterson said, reaching for a small duffle bag by her feet. "I brought you a change of clothes. Another agent was supposed to bring it by earlier, but… well… the office is a bit of a zoo at the moment. Sorry it took so long." She held the strap of the bag up for Jane to take. It took a few seconds before Jane even noticed, since she was still trying to avoid looking at Patterson, but she did slowly take it, sighing heavily.
"Thanks," she said in a flat voice, devoid of nearly all emotion. It was how she felt, by that point. Empty.
"Jane… go ahead and change," Patterson told her. Jane looked around worriedly, feeling exactly as concerned as she had when Reade had told her to go and wash up.
"No, I should stay here, in case…" Jane trailed off distractedly. She knew that the logical thing to do was to go and change out of her current, filthy clothes, but she didn't want to move from the spot where she sat. What if there was important news, after all?
"I can stay here in case anyone comes out to tell us what's going on…" Patterson assured her. It was only then that Jane began to consider the option of leaving her spot in the waiting room to go back to the bathroom to change her clothes. "Besides," Patterson added, "I'm sure you'll be more comfortable. And when you get in to see Weller, you know he'll freak out if he sees you covered in blood. No matter how injured he is, he'll be worried about you."
It was the kind of thing that Patterson would have said to Weller to tease him, except that at the same time, it was the truth. Both Jane and Weller had always been far more concerned about the other than about themselves, even back before they even realized it.
Jane smiled just a tiny, miniscule smile, but a smile nonetheless. Patterson was right, after all, and Jane knew it. Kurt would probably lecture her in annoyance if he saw her at his bedside in the filthy clothes she was currently wearing. Her smile turned to a pain in her chest a few seconds later, however, when she realized that she didn't know if, by the time she finally got to see him, he'd been in a state in which he'd even be able to notice what she was wearing.
Think positive, she told herself. The words were hollow as they echoed in her head, but she was trying.
Standing up stiffly once again, she looked back at Patterson over her shoulder as the blonde sat her purse on Jane's chair, to save her place, and then smiled at her encouragingly. "Go ahead," she whispered, and Jane nodded, turning obediently and heading towards the bathroom around the corner.
As she waited for Jane to return, Patterson looked around impatiently, beginning to feel like really, it had been long enough and they should have heard something long ago. After all, Weller had been admitted just after five o'clock, if she was remembering correctly, and now it was nearly midnight. Surely they should be able to tell them something by now…
Jane walked back around the corner, and Patterson swiftly moved her purse so that Jane could sit down again. She looked more refreshed, even if she didn't feel it, Patterson thought. Jane dropped the bag beside her chair and resumed her former position, hunched forwards, appearing lost in thought, grateful when Patterson didn't attempt to engage her in conversation.
Suddenly, there was an olive skinned woman in a white coat standing in front of them, holding a clipboard and looking hesitantly at the two women. Patterson was the first to notice her, as she cleared her throat, and she nudged Jane in the side.
"Are you two waiting for Mr. Weller?" the woman asked kindly. Jane's head shot up despite her exhaustion, not even having noticed Patterson's attempt to get her attention, and the two of them stood up nervously.
"Yes, we are," Patterson replied for both of them. Jane's throat had gone dry, and she couldn't bring herself to speak. Her eyes burned and her head was throbbing, which was making her slightly dizzy. She silently begged the doctor in front of them to spit out whatever she had to say quickly.
The woman nodded at them. "I'm Dr. Davis. Mr. Weller sustained substantial injuries…" Jane heard her say. She tried desperately to focus on the doctor's words, but after 'substantial injuries' it was difficult for her to keep her mind from shrieking. When she tuned back in, she heard the doctor saying, "…a few broken ribs from the impact, and quite a few lacerations. While he did lose some blood due to a shrapnel wound on his shoulder, his blood loss was not enough to necessitate a transfusion. Our main concern right now is that he remains unconscious. Until he wakes up, we won't know exactly the complete extent of his injuries…"
She paused and looked up at the two women, at which time Patterson interjected, "How long is that going to take?" Despite her extensive knowledge of science, and even the 'better than basic' medical knowledge that she had accumulated over the years in her job, when faced with one of her own in this situation, she was finding it hard to think rationally.
Dr. Davis smiled patiently at Patterson. "I wish I could tell you," she told said. "It just depends on him." The two women stood in front of the doctor silently. Jane was just trying to focus on breathing in and out, which was almost proving to be too much for her. It wasn't bad news, but it wasn't good news either. It was more wait and see, which she hated.
"When can we see him?" Jane asked, finally finding her voice, though she had to work to push the words out.
"One of you can go back at a time," Dr. Davis replied. "Once he wakes up, and we can assess his condition, it's possible that he could have more than one visitor." Jane almost gasped with relief at the thought of being allowed to see him, and Patterson nudged her.
"Go, Jane," she instructed her. "I'll wait here."
Turning gratefully toward the other woman, Jane said, "Thanks… but it's okay, Patterson, you don't have to wait. I'll be fine. You should go home and get some sleep. I really appreciate your keeping me company, but it's late. Besides, there's going to be a lot of work to do after this."
Patterson nodded. "My team is already on it, trust me," she told Jane. "But are you sure? It's no trouble." Really, she was worried about Weller, of course, but she was also worried about Jane. But then again, if they're willing to let her sit with Weller, there's absolutely no way Jane's going to leave his side. She admitted hesitantly that Jane should be okay, at least for a few hours.
"Okay, Jane, if you're sure you're okay… but promise you'll call one of us if you need something? Anything?" Patterson asked, looking at Jane hesitantly and trying to figure out if she actually would. Jane was always impossible when it came to asking for help, after all.
Jane nodded tiredly, realizing that this sounded a lot like a promise Kurt had forced her to make on more than one occasion. And because she would have agree to almost anything to get to see Kurt at that moment, she whispered, "Okay." Patterson stepped forward and hugged her without a second thought.
"I'll see you later, okay? We'll be back in the morning, at some point," Patterson promised as she moved back quickly, realizing that she didn't actually know whether Jane had wanted to be hugged or not. She didn't look upset with her, however. Or, more accurately, not any more upset than she'd already looked, at least.
They nodded at each other one more time, and Jane whispered, "Thanks, Patterson," before following Dr. Davis down the hall and around the corner. Everything around Jane was a blur, and she had to struggle to focus on the one particular white coat that she was supposed to be following. Finally, the doctor came to a stop at a particular door, putting her hand on the handle and then stopping before she turned the handle.
"He's in rough shape, but so far his vitals are strong," she said kindly, noting Jane's obvious distress, and wanting to prepare her as much as she could. Jane just nodded, and the doctor gave her one more smile before opening the door quietly to reveal Kurt, on the bed that took up most of the small room.
Jane stepped forward, and as soon as she was clear of the door, the doctor closed it behind her. She stopped in her tracks, her heart in her throat and her hand over her mouth. There was Kurt, hooked up to what looked to Jane like too many machines, none of which she was familiar with, and one of which beeped quietly beside the bed. There was room for a single chair up against the side of the bed, and besides that, it appeared that there was barely room for the staff to maneuver around their patient. Jane couldn't help but wonder if the room had formerly been used as a closet, it was so small. Still, it was better than if it had been a room with more than one patient, even if it would have been bigger. Just then, Jane didn't want to share space with anyone else.
Walking forward slowly, her eyes never leaving Kurt, she settled herself cross legged in the chair that sat on the right side of the bed, near his head, leaning forward slowly until her hands sat carefully on the blanket, just beside him. Then, even more slowly, she took his left hand in both of hers. Though she tried her best to hold them in, she could feel tears leaking down her cheeks again. She didn't even try to stop them, keeping his hand between hers, and within minutes she was sure that she looked like as much of a mess as she felt. Still, it didn't matter. She much preferred to be here beside him than to have still been in the waiting room.
At some point, the door opened quietly behind her, and though she heard it, Jane didn't make any move to acknowledge that she had. A shadow fell across the bed as a figure came closer, and a soft voice said, "Hi, sweetie, my name is Natalie. I'm Mr. Weller's nurse tonight. Are you his wife?"
Jane looked up then, surprised at the question. Well, it's a reasonable assumption, considering how you're acting, the voice in her head pointed out.
"No," Jane said simply, shaking her head and silently begging the nurse – Natalie – not to ask any follow up questions. Because what could she tell her? What was she to him? What was he to her? If someone had straight out asked her – What is he to you? – she had no idea how she would have answered. After all, he wasn't her husband or her boyfriend or any easy label. She wasn't even sure he'd say they were friends. Not yet.
You're kidding, right? the voice demanded. Of course he'd say you're friends. But just then everything seemed so complicated, and her head was pounding so hard, she simply couldn't accept this.
No, we're just… nothing, she thought sadly.
You've never been nothing to each other, the voice in her head reminded her kindly. You know that that's not true.
I don't know anything anymore, she thought, her eyes having drifted from Natalie back to Kurt.
Natalie was talking again, Jane realized. "Do you need anything, honey?" she asked her kindly. "You look like you're having a rough night." Jane cleared her throat, trying to reply, but ended up simply shaking her head, her eyes back on Kurt once again.
"Alright, well if you need me, just press that button there, okay?" Natalie asked. Her voice had grown even gentler as she'd watched Jane.
I must look like even more of a mess than I thought, Jane realized, though she didn't really care enough to do anything about it.
At the moment, as it had been for hours now, it was all she could do to keep breathing in and out. In most situations, even without memories of past experience to help tell her what to do, Jane could usually figure out the best way to handle herself. But now, here, watching Kurt lying unconscious, her mind was blank. She held onto his hand and simply waited, trying not to think. Because when she did think, the only thing that came to her mind was how in the world was she going to survive if he didn't wake up?
It was a horrible thought, absolutely unthinkable. How was she supposed to imagine her life without him? There had never, in the part of her life that she could remember, as Jane, been a day when she didn't know him, after all. She understood in theory that most people had only a very few people – their families – who they knew every day of their lives. Some family members didn't even fall into that category, even. By that over simplified definition, Kurt – and only Kurt – was her family. It wasn't that simple, of course, but maybe it explained why she felt the way she did.
And so, given that painful possibility as the only thought that kept pounding in her head, she attempted not to think at all. It didn't work, but she tried her best.
Slowly, the last of her adrenaline drained out of her and she felt her eyes beginning to close. She was hunched forward, and had to keep catching herself before she fell forward towards the bed as she began to fall asleep sitting up. Finally, realizing that it was hopeless to continue to fight it, she leaned forward, letting her head fall against her left arm on the edge of the bed beside Kurt's leg. Within seconds her eyes closed, her arms sticking out from under her at such an angle that even now, as she slept, she held onto Kurt's hand in both of her own.