Valium (Chapter two)
This chapter has a lot more angst than the last chapter but still has a decent amount of humor!
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Kurt wakes up, from his three hour nap with Jane, really sore and not as well rested as he should be to have slept for three hours. To be honest, he hadn't slept well in...a very long time.
Kurt stealthily rolls out of bed, to not wake Jane, and walks out to the living room. He paces endlessly in a back and forth motion. Turning thoughts over and over in his mind.
It's wrong! You can't just go behind Jane's back, it's- it's unethical! Not to mention immoral!
But something is definitely wrong with her! I mean, what if she winds up hurting herself or...worse.
Kurt had had enough. He pulled out his phone and dialed Borden.
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"Are you crazy?" Tasha heatedly asks.
"Yeah what the h*ll Patterson? We can't do that! Concerned or not it's a HUGE invasion of privacy!" Reade chimes in.
"But if you guys would just listen-" Patterson uncomfortably tries to but in.
"No! Because not only is it an invasion of privacy but it's i-ll-egal, I'm not taking part in an unnecessary risk. Necessary illegal things, yeah sign me up! No question. But this? Honestamente estas loca." Tasha's Spanish accent comes out as she argues.
"Mr brother was a drug addict!" Patterson explodes. " He went off the deep end a long time ago and I never talk about him. But everytime I get a call in the middle of the night I think, it's finally the call." Patterson's sterling blue eyes begin to water, so she takes a deep breath to continue. " I'm not crazy. I just- I don't want Jane to end up like him, okay?"
Reade, Tasha, and Nas, who has been eerily quiet throughout this conversation, look to each-other in agreement.
"Alright,I guess we're hacking into Borden's computer."
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After thirty minutes, Kurt climbs back into Jane's bed to hopefully get some better sleep.
But just as he starts to doze off, he feels Jane beside him starting to squirm. She's mumbling nonsense and turning from side to side.
Oh God. She's having a nightmare.
Kurt gently pulls on her forearm in an attempt to wake her. But she violently jerks it away from him and escalates to yelling in her sleep.Kurt knowing that his heart can't take much more of this frantically kneels on top of her and grabs her forearms, trying to gently sit her up to maybe awaken her. It didn't work.
Then she started screaming.
Kurt's never heard her scream before. She was never frightened by gunfire or put in any position, in the field, that scared her. It was awful. The way all her core muscles contracted in order to gain energy to scream harder, and the way her voice cracked from the force of her screaming was sickening. Kurt started crying, while still kneeled over her.
"Jane please, just wake up, please!"
All of a sudden Jane's bedroom door bursts open.
It's her detail.
"Assistant Director Weller?" The first agent through the door asks.
Sh*t.
"Get out!"
"But she's-" The other agent started.
"I said get out!"
"Yeah okay." They hurriedly left.
Kurt could worry about them later. Jane was still...
"Jane wake up, it's a dream it can't hurt you. Just wake up okay? Just wake up."
Now Jane's screams had subsided and she was back to yelling. She was yelling about rings, a piece of rope, keys, and Valium, an- and- he couldn't have heard that last part right. She was yelling his name.
Kurt couldn't take it anymore. He ran to Jane's kitchen and got a cup of water. While hoping she wasn't dreaming about being waterboarded, he poured it on her.
It worked! She awoke with a start, sitting straight up eye to eye with Kurt. She was hyperventilating and wide eyed. Then she locked eyes with Kurt.
Did she remember how he got there?
He didn't need to ask as he saw her expression change. The understanding in her eyes very faint but there, almost but not quite masked by her lingering fear.
She basically jumped out of her bed and ran straight for the bathroom.
"Jane!" Kurt tried to follow, but she slams the door in his face. "Jane please we need to talk."
Her sobs muffled by the door, are still audible. Jane quickly turns on the shower and falls to the ground inside of it. She's still fully clothed, but in no state to care.
Once Kurt hears the shower he sits down with his back against the bathroom door and tries to dry his own eyes with the bottom of his shirt.
He listens closer and can still hear her sobs, through the door and the shower. He needs to get in there. Then Kurt suddenly realises, she didn't lock the door.
He quickly stands up, but very very slowly opens the door. Startling her right now was one of the worst ideas. Then he saw her. She was balled up against the back shower wall fully-ish clothed, from earlier, but soaking wet.
Kurt stepped into the spray of the shower also fully clothed but willingly getting drenched from head to toe, and sank to his knees. He tried to gather her in his arms, but she flinched away from his touch and scooted fully into the back corner of the shower. Kurt opted to sit with his back against the shower wall, watching the shower spray. Listening to her cry beside him. This was definitely one of the times he's felt his most helpless.
But then after a couple of moments pass Jane suddenly wraps her arms around Kurt's shoulders. The force and speed of it would have knocked him over if he had been standing. He quickly wrapped his arms around her as well, holding her as close as his wet, wrinkled clothes would allow. Jane maneuvered into Kurt's lap without releasing her grip, but instead of straddling him, she wrapped her legs around him mirroring her arms. While Kurt moved one hand to her middle back and the other to cradle the back of her head.
She continued to cry in his arms for a longer time than expected. But when her cries subsided she pushed, actually pushed, herself off of Kurt and stood.
"Get out." She said, her voice hard but simultaneously shaking.
"But Jane-"
"I said get out!" She screamed.
Now he's heard her scream at him in two new ways.
He stood up, and stepped past her to grab a towel, and left.
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"It's useless he must handwrite all his notes." Patterson says frustratedly. She had been digging through Borden's computer files for a little over half an hour.
"Well I guess that's it then. Hey, maybe it's for the best right? So we won't lose the complete trust and respect from one of our teammates." Tasha inquires.
"Not necessarily." Patterson thinks out loud.
"Excuse me?"
"Hear me out, what if... Well, we/I could hack into the security cameras."
"What? The notes would have been bad enough but this- is just... I mean-" Reade attempts to step in.
"Also what would we gain from that? The feed wouldn't have audio, and we could barely read their lips because of camera angles. Honestly it just seems like we're reaching now. Back us up here Nas." Tasha tries to reason.
Nas starts to shift her weight from side to side.
"Nas come on. You're supposed to be the level headed one, right?" Tasha tries again.
Nas clears her throat. "We would get more than we think."
"What the h*ll are you talking about?" Reade questions.
"When I first came I- I planted a bug in Borden's office."
"You what?!" Tasha and Reade scream in unison.
Patterson looks down without reacting.
"And you knew?!" Tasha points at Patterson.
"I ran a bug check in Borden's office and found it. I disabled it immediately, and gave it to Weller."
Tasha nods.
"But right now we nee to focus. Yes I planted a bug and maybe that wasn't right bu-"
"Maybe?!" Tasha scoffs.
"But since I did." Nas continues. "I have all of Jane's sessions archived onto my personal phone. If we line up the security feed with my audio then we could essentially have a front row seat to any and all conversations of importance within that office."
A silence feel upon the group. It was a good plan. But could they really be in board with this?
"That's why you were so quiet when we were discussing the ethical injustices of looking through Borden's computer. Do you have any boundaries? I mean my God woman!" Tasha spat.
"I'm NSA, my whole job is to-"
"Your whole job IS NOT to spy on your team members so don't even."
"Look, I needed to know where Jane's head was at, at all times. I didn't even listen to you guys."
"Yes because that makes it so much better." Reade adds.
"Look we need to come to an agreement. I don't like it either. But Jane is our friend and she needs our help. So we need to decide right now how far we're willing to gi to help her." Patterson mediates.
Another silence.
Tasha sighs. "I'll go get the popcorn."
"This isn't a movie, this is a MASSIVE invasion of privacy " Reade says, obviously irritated with this whole ordeal.
"A massive invasion of privacy that I'm staying overtime to watch instead of going to get dinner, so popcorn is the only alternative." Tasha says over her shoulder as she heads for the break room.
When Tasha returns with popcorn, she sees that the screens have been manipulated to play the feed. Patterson grabs a piece of popcorn.
"Okay, now that everyone's here we can get this over with. Nas, we need to hit the buttons of the feed and the audio at the same time."
"Yes ma'am."
"There's no going back." Reade warns looking Patterson straight in the eye.
"I know,but it's the only way." Patterson inhales deeply. "On three. One. Two. Three."
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Jane "actually" showered for an additional thirty minutes before coming out. She halfway expected to see Kurt sitting on the edge of her bed, but he wasn't. So she put on her favorite white, mid thigh high, robe and walked out towards the living room.
Kurt was sitting on the couch wrapped in a towel. Slightly shivering.
"You can get in the shower now." Jane offered.
Kurt looked up at her and raised his eyebrows.
"Then we can talk. I promise." She must have read his mind.
With that, Kurt went to the shower. In total he took about 20 minutes, he had to wash up with a lavender and honey scented body wash but some sacrifices had to be made. Once he turned the faucet off he realised that he didn't have an extra pair of clothes. That's when he heard a knock on the door.
"Can I come in?" Jane asked softly.
Instead of verbally answering, Kurt wrapped a fresh towel around his waist and opened the door.
Jane handed him his fresh clothing. At Kurt's stunned look she explained.
"I snuck in earlier and dried them."
Kurt smiled widely, causing her to blush.
"Thank you."
"I'll be on the couch when you're ready."
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Kurt walked out to the living room and true to her word, there she was. On the couch, her hair dripping onto the cushions.
"Hey." He approached.
"Hey."
He sat on the opposite end of the couch but turned towards her, which made him seem closer. Jane shifted uncomfortably in her seat, so Kurt started.
"I talked to your detail. I think they got the wrong idea." Kurt flushes thinking about the awfully awkward exchange.
--------------Earlier-------------
Kurt walked out in his soaking wet clothes in 40° weather, freezing, to the black government issued sedan parked across the street from Jane's safehouse. As he approached the older agent occupying the driver's seat rolled down his window.
"Assistant Director Weller." He greets.
"Hey guys." Kurt greets, much more casually."Thank you for checking on Jane, but I've got it."
"Oh he definitely got it." The younger agent in the passenger seat snickers under his breath.
"Ok well before I go back inside,I have to ask. Why didn't you guys come in sooner?"
"We came in as soon as we heard the screaming sir."
"No I mean when she was throwing plates at me."
"When she what?!"
"Okay maybe he didn't get it." He remarks again.
"Sir we're parked across the street, even with the of thinnest walls it would take a while before we could hear any crashing noises." The older agent explains.
"That makes sense. Okay well goodnight."
"Wait! So should we leave?"
"Yeah take the night off."
"Thank you sir. You enjoy getting your night off too!"
Before Kurt could respond the agents rolled up their windows and sped off.
--------------Present-------------
"Oh God!" Jane laughs.
"It was awful!" Kurt laughs with her.
"You just had to bring up the plate thing didn't you?"
"Oh yeah, I'm traumatized. I can't even look at a plate now!"
Jane laughs harder. But their laughter soon dies out from the tension in the air. They needed to talk.
"Jane. Your night...terrors. How long have they been going on?"
"About four months." Jane refuses to look at him.
"Is that why you take the Valium?"
There was a long silence.
"Yes."
"Okay. But Jane there's still something off here. If you've been taking Valium for so long how come it's never effected you like this before?"
Jane starts to fiddle with her robe string, and Kurt gulps.
Focus Kurt!
"You want to know the truth?" Jane suddenly looked him square in the eye with her jaw clenched.
"Please."
"I took three times my prescription."
"You what?! Why would yo-"
"Why? What do you mean why? You saw what happened in there, and that was after three doses! I am so-tired-Kurt."
"You could have killed yourself!"
"I didn't care! It was early in the morning and I had slept for maybe eight hour collectively in the last four days! I was done. Wether I fell asleep or overdosed, either way I needed rest.
He couldn't comprehend what just came out of her mouth.
She can't be serious.
He decided to change the subject.
"So what do you dream about?"
"No."
"Excuse me?"
"Ask me something else."
"No Jane we need to discu-"
"We don't need to discuss anything!"
Jane got off the couch and started to walk towards her bedroom.
"You said my name, Jane!"
She stopped in her tracks.
"When you were screaming. You were saying all kinds of things, it sounded like nonsense, but I just couldn't figure out the significance until now. You said something about rings, our rings from our undercover mission. You said keys, which I can't figure out yet. Rope, for the homemade mace you made to escape the blacksite. You said Valium, which is obvious. But then you said my name... Why?"
Jane finally turned around. "Why?"
She walked towards Kurt at lightening speed ready to argue, but then... Her demeanor changed all together. It's like she exhaled all of her pent up anger. Then she began to speak. "I relive two moments every single night Kurt. The night that you arrested me, right here in this room. And the day you said that you "don't even want to be in the same room" with me. Don't you understand what you did to me?" Jane was talking right below him, they were close.
"I didn't mean that."
Jane steps back.
"Yes. You. Did!"
"Well I don't anymore and you know that!" He steps closer to her.
Jane scoffs.
"What does that change Kurt? I'm still on Valium, I'm still killing myself in the gym because maybe if I physically exhaust myself enough I can actually sleep! But you didn't mean it, so that somehow all goes away right?" She was yelling and furious, but her yells were somewhat soft. Their closeness made it hard to want to yell.
"You know what I meant just now, Jane."
"I dream about you more than the blacksite Kurt!" She said looking him straight in the eyes. "It's you that torments me in my sleep! All of my thoughts in my waking life have an under-toned voice behind it saying "On your knees, hands on your head." I can't sleep, I can't eat, I sure as h*ll can't focus! It's you Kurt! You- you broke me.
Something broke inside of Kurt with her last words. He felt a physical pang in his heart.
Jane turns on her heel, and covers her face to try to hide her crying. She escapes to her room leaving Kurt paralyzed in her living room.
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"Okay guys session 4 is up and running! Also we have eaten six bags of popcorn but haven't thought of just ordering something." Patterson says while fiddling with some cords.
"Doesn't matter, I like popcorn more than "real" food anyways." Tasha remarks.
"Hey! Popcorn totally counts as real food!" Nas jokes, finally giving in to the team banter.
"Literally how are you guys in shape?" Reade jokingly questions.
Patterson hits the start button on Jane's fourth session after her return. She didn't say much of anything for the first twenty minutes, so they voted to skip until something interesting- INFORMATIONAL, because this is not at all enjoyable, happens.
"Hey wait their talking, Nas fast forward the audio to 45:30 please." Patterson delegates.
"Yes ma'am. " Nas says jokingly.
Tasha turns the volume up.
"Jane it is normal to feel...lost when you disconnect from someone you loved."
"I didn't love him." Jane says harshly. They had forgotten how different Jane had been when she first came back.
"Maybe you did."
"I- I mean mayb- wait how is this supposed to be helping?"
"Jane we can only deal with our emotions if we identify them."
Nas, Tasha, Reade, and Patterson collectively lean forward in their chairs. This was what they were waiting for.
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Jane quietly returned to the living room with a pair of white sneakers on.
"Where are you going?"
She walks past Kurt without saying a word and straight into the kitchen, to grab a drink. Once he hears thw crunch of glass under her sneakers he realised why she had to put them on. He had meant to clean all the broken glass earlier, but got reasonably distracted with the "Jeller sleepover".
"I was gonna clean that up." Kurt says, a safe distance away from the glass.
Jane still didn't talk. She reached in her cupboard for a glass, good thing she didn't break any cups. Then proceeded to grab red wine out of her other cabinet.
You shouldn't be drinking while you're on Valium, Jane."
"Don't care." Jane says as she completely overfills her glass.
Sensing her resentment towards him Kurt asks. "Should I leave? You said that I torment you, and it seems as though I'm some sort of trigger for you, so should I go?"
Jane twirls gorgeous the dark red substance in her cup a couple of times them downs the entire glass before answering.
"No. Sleep on the couch."
Jane sidesteps him to walk towards her room once again. And again she returns within seconds. She hands Kurt a spare comforter, but doesn't look at him. He silently takes it.
Jane grabs her wine glass and bottle, pouring herself another overly full glass as she continues down the hall. This time once she enters her bedroom, she doesn't come out.
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Kurt had been lying on Jane's couch, replaying the eventful day he had for a little over an hour when he got a text from Patterson.
"Watch this."
The message was brief. Too brief.
Kurt instantly clicked on the attachment. Once it opened he was shocked. It seemed to be security camera footage. From- from one of Jane's therapy sessions? It had to be a relatively close to when Jane first returned because she hadn't cut her hair yet in the video.
What the h*ll is going on?
He pressed play.
"Maybe I did love him." Jane blurts.
Kurt's eyes widen.
Jane raises her voice, but it cracks as tears start to fall. "Then what he-h-he arrests me, and is essentially responsible for my three months in h*ll and what?! I still love him? Why? I mean that's the only reason his words can still hurt me like this right?"
"Exactly." Borden leans forward in his chair, like he does whenever he engages in an interesting conversation with a patient. " But the question is Jane, do you want to actively try to fall out of love with Kurt so you can start this healing process or hope that he will find his way to loving you back which could stall and potentially destroy any chance at a healing process I can provide?"
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