A/N: This is my first "Blindspot" fic, and so far my favorite characters are Jane and Patterson, so here's some fluffy Jane/Patterson best friend stuff. Set after 1x01, goes through canon until 1x09, and then ignores 1x10 and on.

Thanks to everyone who reads/reviews/follows/favorites!

Enjoy!

They do their first jigsaw puzzle in the hospital.

It's three in the morning on a Tuesday and Jane's been sitting in the ER for four hours with a bullet wound in her left arm. It's not too bad, mostly a fairly large graze, and it's mostly stopped bleeding, but the mere fact of it all, and the accompanying pain, is making her a little woozy. She has her head propped up in her hands and her elbows resting on the table in front of her.

She's wondering if the ER staff have completely forgotten about her when Patterson crosses the room and sits down across from her, putting a cardboard box on the table.

"A puzzle?" Jane asks, her voice raspy.

Patterson nods. "It's to keep my hands busy."

"You don't have to stay. Weller's here. And Mayfair. I think they're off threatening my security detail. You can go home."

"I know," Patterson says simply, and that one statement, coupled with the way she makes no moves to leave, makes Jane like her even more.

Her arm is going numb and she's too tired to move, but she watches as Patterson dumps the puzzle out of the box and begins sorting the pieces. The picture on the box shows a painting - girls in ballet costumes rehearsing in a studio - and by the time Jane turns her attention away from it, Patterson has found all four corners and is making a serious dent in all of the borders.

"Why do you like to do that?" Jane asks.

"Start with the borders? It anchors the whole puzzle, gives you a feel for the size of it all. Once there's a framework, you work inward until everything fits."

"I meant puzzles. Why do you like puzzles?"

"Oh." Patterson thinks about this. "There's only one answer, so they're all the same. But how you get to the answers is what makes them all different."

She continues snapping pieces together, anchoring the borders, and Jane closes her eyes.

"I like Degas, too," Patterson says. "He was the artist who painted this picture."

"Mm," Jane says, feeling like it's important to let Patterson know she's still listening.

"Do you have a favorite artist, Jane?" Patterson asks.

"I don't remember," Jane says. She seems to be saying that a lot lately.

"We'll have to take you to some museums, so you can figure it out."

Jane brings her fingers up to brush over the bird on her neck.

Patterson finishes the border, the puzzle now firmly anchored, and starts working her way inward.

When Jane finally gets stitches and some fairly nice painkillers, Patterson's still at the table in the ER, the puzzle missing only a handful of pieces.

"I saved them for you," Patterson says, and though Jane's groggy and untethered from the night, she likes that. She reaches over and slides the last remaining puzzle pieces into their places. Her fingers brush Patterson's curls and she realizes Patterson smells like apples.

Weller comes to take Jane back to the safe house, and Jane looks down at the puzzle. It's done now. "What happens to it?" she asks.

"We put it back in the box," Patterson says. "So tomorrow someone else can try it."

Patterson brings puzzles to their first girls' night, along with a bottle of wine.

"One of these cancels the other out," Zapata says, looking at the wine. "If I drink that, I won't have the coordination or the desire to do a puzzle. And if we start with a puzzle… I'll get bored and need to drink the wine."

"Seems like it works out for you either way," Patterson says with a shrug. "Jane?"

"I don't think I like wine."

"One way to find out," Zapata says, and she takes the wine from Patterson, twisting off the top.

Patterson digs out three tumblers, mismatched, and pours generous sloshes of wine into them. "I can do puzzles drunk," she proclaims.

Zapata greatly enjoys the wine, something she says aloud many times as the night progresses. She also loves the pizza, the way the safe house is decorated, and the shoes Patterson's wearing.

Jane has two sips of the wine and it makes her think of decaying foliage. She much prefers watching Patterson assemble the puzzle. "You're starting with the border again."

Patterson takes a drink of her wine. "I always start with the border."

"Because it anchors the puzzle," Jane says, repeating Patterson's words from the hospital a few weeks before.

Patterson nods.

Jane eats another piece of pizza. Zapata lays down on the couch and starts to tell a story about a man she met on a stakeout who owns a horse farm in Kentucky.

Patterson only has eyes for the puzzle. She's like clockwork, hands moving in perfect synchronization. It's like she's done this before, hundreds of times before, yet Jane knows that can't be true, since Patterson cut open the puzzle box for the very first time shortly after arriving at the safe house.

Zapata drifts off - and spills wine on the carpet - but Jane stays at the kitchen table, entranced by Patterson.

"You glow," Jane says, her mouth moving without her consent.

That's what makes Patterson look up, her hands stilling on the puzzle pieces. "What?"

Jane goes hot. "I mean… your hair. In the light. And… the puzzle. Golden."

Patterson looks down at the puzzle, the picture a field of daffodils. Yellow and green, sun in the background, small golden retriever puppies frolicking amidst the flowers. "Oh," she says.

"I'll go… wake Zapata," Jane says, and she hurries out of the kitchen.

She's the one who brings the next puzzle to Patterson. It's brightly-colored butterflies spread out wing-to-wing on a white background, something she found at a bookstore around the corner from the safe house. Jane knows Patterson likes butterflies.

Actually, she isn't sure of much about Patterson, other than that everything the young woman does confuses and entrances her. Patterson smells like apples. Patterson likes puzzles.

And Patterson hasn't been to work in six days.

For the first few days Weller tells the team Patterson's still dealing with David's death, but after that Jane stops believing him. Patterson loves puzzles - she would want to be back in the office, working on deciphering the tattoos on Jane's body. Jane decides it's something else keeping Patterson away.

So she buys the puzzle. And she bothers one of Patterson's assistants until they give her the young woman's address.

At Patterson's door she realizes what a foolish mission this was. Her, the tattooed woman, the cargo found in a bag in Times Square, all questions with no answers, hunting down a blond dream with a penchant for codes and mysteries. Jane is sharp angles; Patterson is gentle curves.

They're too different. Their pieces don't fit together, would never fit snugly to be parts of a whole.

Jane sets the puzzle down outside the door.

She can't figure out what to do.

The door opens just as she's trying to figure out whether or not making a run for it is appropriate. Patterson stands there, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Her eyes are puffy and red.

Sadness, Jane realizes.

"Jane," Patterson says, her voice low. "What… um… What are you doing here?"

Damn good question. Jane looks at her shoes. "You didn't come to work."

Patterson doesn't say anything.

"And I missed you. At work. I mean, because you're part of the team. And without you, we're missing some of the team. Of which you are a part." Jane wants to slap herself.

Still Patterson doesn't speak.

"Also I think you might be the closest thing I've had to a friend since I crawled out of that bag," Jane goes on, her voice quiet.

She finally looks up at Patterson, surprised to see tears in the blond woman's eyes. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry."

Patterson shakes her head and pulls the blanket tighter around her shoulders. "It's not you, Jane."

"Can I… can I do anything to help?"

"I don't think so," Patterson says, though her voice cracks.

"Please. Please just tell me what's wrong."

Patterson leans forward and wraps her arms around Jane. "I'm pregnant," she whispers.

Jane doesn't remember how to make tea. She knows she doesn't like tea, but it tastes like yard clippings. How hard could it be to make?

She stands in Patterson's kitchen, fingers tapping the counter. She hears Patterson behind her. "Jane, what are you doing?"

"I'm making tea."

"Are you sure?" Patterson's voice sounds slightly amused, and she snuffles.

Jane turns around. "No. I'm not sure of anything."

She opens the fridge and sees a bottle of brown milk. Chocolate, she remembers. She pulls it out and rummages around for two glasses. Carefully she pours it into the glasses and pushes one towards Patterson. "It's not tea, but it's a beverage."

"Is that important?"

"I've seen… on TV… that people comfort others with beverages," Jane offers.

Patterson laughs, and Jane thinks she'd do almost anything to keep Patterson from crying again. She takes a sip of her chocolate milk. "Is it… is it David's?"

Patterson takes a step forward and picks up the other cup of chocolate milk. She drinks and thoughtfully considers the question. "It has to be."

"And what are you going to do?" Jane asks.

Patterson puts the glass down. "I don't know."

She moves one hand down to her stomach.

"A puzzle you can't solve," Jane says softly.

"I never thought of it that way." Patterson shakes her head. "There are too many puzzles in the world, Jane. You, your tattoos… why David went out that night, what he was looking for, what I'm going to do with this baby…"

She sighs.

"We can make it one less," Jane says.

"What?"

Jane moves over to Patterson's kitchen table. She slides the puzzle out of the box and slits open the box with her fingernail. Just like she's seen Patterson do, Jane sets the top part of the box in the bottom so she can see the picture. Then Jane sits down and begins fishing the white border pieces out of the pile of pieces.

"The websites say that when the baby starts to move… it feels like butterflies." Patterson sits down next to Jane.

Jane doesn't take her eyes off the puzzle. "We'll solve this one together, okay?"

Patterson brings the next puzzle to Jane's safe house. Jane is curled up on the tile floor in the bathroom, her head throbbing, her stomach wrenched with nausea. She hasn't been able to keep anything down. Weller's bringing a doctor to the safe house; he left Patterson with her for conversation, and to keep Jane awake - the last time he let her fall asleep, she passed out, fell off the bed, and cracked her head open on the nightstand.

"Why didn't you get a flu shot?" Patterson asks. She holds the brightly-colored cube out to Jane. "It's a Rubik's Cube."

"I got a flu shot," Jane says, forcing her voice to remain steady. "I also got the flu."

"It could be something in your blood work we didn't catch," Patterson muses. She begins to spin the sections of the puzzle.

The cube's movements make Jane dizzy. She closes her eyes; she can still hear Patterson's fingers moving over the cube, tick-tick-tick. "Your first ultrasound was this week."

The cube goes quiet.

Jane takes the silence as a cue to open her eyes. She looks up at Patterson.

"It was," Patterson allows softly.

"I should have gone with you."

"That's not your responsibility."

"Someone should have gone."

A spasm of nausea wracks Jane's body, and she gags as she leans over the toilet. Nothing comes up, and she sinks back down to to the tile. "Next time," she pants to Patterson. "Next time, I'll go with you."

"Okay," Patterson says, and when Jane closes her eyes, she feels Patterson begin to stroke her hair. "You know, this is what morning sickness is like."

"This has been all day sickness."

"Exactly."

Patterson finds Jane in the conference room, photos of the tattoos spread out over the table. She puts a box on top of the bird tattoo's photo.

"A new puzzle?" Jane asks.

"Yes. For later." Patterson seems breathless. "I need your help with something."

"Anything," Jane says, and means it.

"We need to tell them."

Jane's so focused on the word we that she nearly misses the end of the sentence. "Tell them what?"

Patterson indicates her stomach. She's nearly twenty weeks pregnant, and Jane has no idea how the rest of the team hasn't noticed. Patterson's usual wardrobe thus far has been accented with loose, flowy blouses, and her minimal heels have been replaced by flats. The workday is frequently interrupted with Patterson's visits to the bathroom, and more than once Jane has found Patterson sobbing in her office.

"Oh. Okay," Jane says.

"I mean, if you're not busy."

"I'm not busy." Jane sweeps the photos back into the file. "I'm never too busy for you."

The team is gathered in Mayfair's office. Jane opens the door; Patterson looks like she's reconsidering.

"We'll do it together," Jane says quietly. She slips her hand into Patterson's, gives it a squeeze. She likes the way her tattooed hand and wrist looks intertwined with Patterson's, and for the first time they look like fitted puzzle pieces. They exist now inside the formal borders of a picture, giving their world weight and anchor.

Patterson clears her throat and Weller, Reade, and Zapata turn towards her. Mayfair raises her head. "What can I do for you, Agent Patterson?"

"I have something to share," Patterson says.

"About the case?" Reade asks.

Patterson shakes her head. "It's… uh… it's about David."

"About David's case?" Weller frowns at Jane.

Patterson shakes her head again, and Jane sees her eyes filling with tears. She squeezes Patterson's hand.

"Something David left me," Patterson whispers, and she pulls the hem of her blouse taut against the swell of her belly.

"Oh," Mayfair says faintly.

Weller jerks upright from his chair and crosses the room to them.

"Don't hit her!" Jane says fiercely, and she steps in front of Patterson. Through their hand-to-hand connection she can feel Patterson tense, and she hears the blond's breathing pick up.

Weller looks at Jane, confused. "Why would I… why would I hit her?"

Jane freezes. She looks over at Mayfair, then down to Reade and Zapata.

"Jane," Mayfair says gently, "are you remembering something?"

A woman. A woman she doesn't know. Swell of a belly. Screaming. Slapping, echoing loudly down a hallway. Herself, watching from afar, younger, yelling out NO!

"Jane," Weller says, his voice stern. "Jane, can you focus on me?"

"Puzzles can't always be solved," Jane says, and she bolts from the room, nausea forcing acid up her throat.

Jane's entire body is shaking; she's a box of puzzle pieces being jumbled around in a hailstorm. She stumbles back into the conference room and her jerking motions cause all of the tattoo pictures and Patterson's puzzle to tumble to the floor. She curses and bends down for them.

In the dark, cool space under the table, surrounded by a hail of puzzle pieces and images of her own skin, she finds she's gasping for breath, tears streaming down her face. Her body won't relax enough for her to get more air in; she presses her forehead to the carpet and sobs.

"Jane." It's Weller. "Come on out here."

Jane closes her eyes.

Another voice joins Weller's - Patterson. "Jane, please."

"Go away," Jane says loudly. "I'm not… I'm not good. I'm not safe."

A small hand covers Jane's own. "Listen to me," Patterson says softly.

Jane raises her head and opens her eyes; through her tears she sees Patterson kneeling in front of her. "You shouldn't sit like that," Jane says. "It might…"

"I've been doing prenatal yoga," Patterson says. "I think I'm fine."

She squeezes Jane's hand. "And you're fine. You're not dangerous. You're a good person, Jane. You care about others - people you don't know. And people you do know."

"But I know… I know things, I have these clues, and no one knows what they're from and… they never lead us anywhere good. It's always danger, and it hurts everyone around me."

Patterson shakes her head, and she brings Jane's hand up and to her stomach. Jane's hand is sandwiched between Patterson's own and Patterson's warm belly, and Jane barely registers that before she feels a gentle nudge against her palm.

"Not everyone," Patterson says softly. "Not everyone."

"I was looking at the checkerboard pattern behind your left knee when I realized it wasn't a true checkerboard. The squares aren't equally divided between black and white, and the patterns aren't even," Patterson says. She approaches the monitor with her hand supporting her lower back. At thirty-two weeks her usually-brisk walk has become a sway-backed waddle. "I wondered if it might be…"

She pauses, and rubs her back.

"Are you all right?" Jane asks. She and Patterson have been spending a lot of time together. Patterson claims that since her brain is flooded with pregnancy hormones, she can't stop solving puzzles. Jane knows it's true - Patterson calls her at all hours of day and night, telling her about jigsaw puzzles or cryptics or even Jane's own tattoos. The safe house kitchen walls are covered in tattoo photos; the safe house kitchen table is a slew of jigsaw pieces and Rubik's Cubes.

"I just…" Patterson winces and shrugs off whatever it is. "I wondered if…"

She stops again and shifts on her feet. "Unhh."

"Patterson?" Jane touches her elbow.

Patterson lets out a low moan and hunches in on her rounded abdomen.

Jane grabs a chair and forces Patterson into it, then sticks her head out into the hallway. Reade, Weller, and Zapata are out of the office for security reviews at the NSA, and Mayfair said she had an all-day meeting with other intelligence agency leaders, so she doesn't see anyone she knows. But Patterson needs help. Jane whips her head from side to side. "Hey!" she yells at the first person she sees, a man with salt-and-pepper hair and a goatee.

He crosses the corridor, a nervous look on his face as he approaches the tattooed woman with the wild expression on her face. "Can I help you?"

"Patterson. Patterson needs help," Jane says. Her throat feels paralyzed, like she can't make herself clear. "Please."

The man looks over Jane's shoulder to where Patterson is sitting on the desk chair, her teeth gritted. "Agent Patterson?"

"Agent… Castillo," Patterson pants. "Call medical."

Jane's heart sinks. She sees dark red soaking through Patterson's sweater and skirt, and though she doesn't know anything about pregnancy except what she's read in the books Patterson loaned her, she knows it can't mean anything good.

Agent Castillo calls an ambulance. Jane squeezes Patterson's hand while they wait. Patterson looks up at Jane, tears in her eyes. "Not like this," she whispers. "David shouldn't have died the way he did, and I don't want… I don't want to die like this."

"You're not going to die."

"Oh, Jane," Patterson says, her voice gentle. "I thought you were a better liar. Super secret spy and all that."

Patterson doesn't let go of Jane's hand all the way to the hospital, and Jane only lets go when she's forced to, by a kind-faced nurse who shows her back to the same waiting room where Jane and Patterson did their first jigsaw puzzle together.

When Weller finds her, Jane has no idea how much time has passed, but there's a stack of puzzles on the far side of the table she's completed, and she's got jigsaw pieces in her hands.

Weller brings Jane's chin up gently and notes the tears streaming down her cheeks. "Hey," he says.

"I'm sorry," Jane whispers, but she doesn't know why.

"That you tore through these puzzles?" Weller asks. "I don't think you have to apologize for that."

"For Patterson."

"Patterson's going to be fine," Weller says.

"What?"

Weller kneels down next to her. "Patterson's fine."

"But the blood…"

"She had a cyst that ruptured," Weller says. "From stress. She's going to have to stay on bed rest for the rest of her pregnancy, but… she's fine. Baby's fine."

Jane flings her arms around Weller. He rocks her back and forth. "They're fine, Jane," he murmurs.

"Fine," Jane repeats, her whisper sounds like a prayer.

"And what's even better, you'll have a lot of time to do puzzles," Weller says. "I didn't know you liked puzzles."

"I didn't," Jane tells him. "Not until…"

Until Patterson. She can't finish the sentence, but Weller seems to understand all the same.

"I thought we were going to do puzzles," Jane says. She cuts her sandwich into fourths, the way Patterson likes it. Jane doesn't know how she likes her own sandwiches. She's realizing there's so much she doesn't know about herself, but she tries to capitalize on the few things she does know. And she know she likes Patterson. So if Patterson eats her sandwiches in quarters, that's good enough for Jane.

"We did three just this morning," Patterson replies. Her feet are up on the sofa, and she has a mug of tea balanced on her belly. "And more than twenty over the past seven weeks. The baby's demanding a break. We can still do puzzles, though. This is 'Wheel of Fortune.'"

Jane sits down on the floor next to the couch, crossing her legs. On the screen a game show host is talking, introducing contestants. "I've never seen this before."

"You say that about a lot of things."

"It's true about a lot of things."

Patterson grins and shifts her position, rubbing her swollen abdomen absentmindedly. "The contestants spin a wheel for a chance to guess letters to fill in a puzzle."

"Why do they need the wheel?"

"You know, I don't think anyone's ever asked that before."

Jane eats her sandwich. Patterson's always trying to get her to try new things, even if they're just simple things like sandwich fillings. So far Jane has discovered she likes grape jelly but not strawberry, raspberry but not orange marmalade, and she can't quite figure out her feelings on apricot, peach, and blackberry. She keeps her eyes on the TV while she chews, trying to decide whether or not she likes blackberry jam.

"I'm scared, you know," Patterson says.

Jane swallows. "Of the baby?"

"Not of the baby," Patterson replies, a smile in her voice. "Of what happens after the baby gets here."

"You bring it home," Jane says. One of the contestants guesses "B" and Jane shakes her head.

Patterson laughs, and she runs her fingers through Jane's hair. "And then we're alone, together, forever."

"Not alone," Jane says. "L."

The contestant guesses "C" and is wrong.

"No, I guess not," Patterson says. "Not when I have you."

"And Weller, and Zapata, and Reade. And maybe even Mayfair, although I heard Weller say he could never imagine Mayfair as a baby. You can count on us."

Patterson doesn't respond, but her fingers keep moving through Jane's hair.

"We're your border," Jane says.

"My what?"

"Your border. We anchor you. Then we can work inward until everything fits."

Patterson laughs. Jane turns towards her and sees tears in the young woman's eyes.

"Nobody ever listened to me like you do, Jane," Patterson says.

"Then you're my border, too," Jane decides.

She squeezes Patterson's hand. "Whatever happens, you were the first one to solve me."

Patterson gets antsy throughout the afternoon and spends a lot of time sitting in the baby's room. Jane makes macaroni and cheese for dinner and finishes their puzzle from the morning; Patterson falls asleep on her bed after "Jeopardy." Jane sits on the bed next to her. She's supposed to be looking at a case file for Weller, but it's unopened on her lap.

Jane twists her fingers in the hem of her shirt. Next to her Patterson seems so fragile, like spun glass, but Jane knows differently. Patterson is one of the strongest people Jane knows, and although that pool of people isn't very big, that doesn't matter to Jane.

Gently Jane moves her hand over Patterson's swollen abdomen. In the last seven weeks they've spent so much time together that Jane no longer feels strange performing this action. It feels familiar now, the warmth and curve representing something Jane doesn't have the correct words to explain. Patterson's safe. Patterson's like home - a concept Jane doesn't have the right words for, either, but one she's figuring out more and more.

Patterson grunts in her sleep, and Jane feels the baby shift and roll under her palm. Then Jane feels something new - Patterson's abdomen muscles tighten. It's an extremely firm, fierce tensing, and it lasts for twenty seconds before it fades away.

Jane waits, but she doesn't feel that again.

"Jane," Patterson murmurs.

Jane jumps. "I didn't do anything."

"I know," Patterson says amusedly, her eyes still closed. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"Oh."

"But I need you to get my suitcase."

There. The tightening happens again.

Something snaps together in Jane's brain and she looks at Patterson. "This is it, isn't it?"

Patterson opens her eyes. She looks tired, but there's a spark of excitement in her expression. "This is it, Jane," she agrees. "I'm pretty sure this is it."

Jane starts to get up, but Patterson wraps her fingers around Jane's wrist. "Stay with me this time, okay? The whole time, okay?"

"I've never been at a birth before," Jane says honestly.

Patterson grins. "I would be impressed by that, but yesterday you told me you'd never been to a Dairy Queen before."

Her name is Moira Jane Patterson, and she's beautiful. She has reddish-blond hair and blue eyes, and Jane can't take her eyes off her sweet face.

But she doesn't want to hold her. "No," she says.

"Jane," Weller says. "It's okay. We all held her."

But I'm not like you. Jane shakes her head. She wants to hold the baby, but at the same time there's something permanent about her, something rigid and yet broken, something she doesn't want to infect the baby. "No," she repeats in a whisper.

Weller takes a few steps towards Jane, the baby in his arms. She forces herself to stand still.

"She doesn't know anything about the world yet," Weller says.

"I shouldn't be the one to teach her. I've done..."

Weller takes another step forward. "That means she doesn't know what you've done, and it means she won't care. All she needs is love."

"And food, and shelter, and sleep," Jane says idiotically. Her eyes are locked on the baby's face. "She's so…"

"She's pure love," Weller says, and he carefully slides the baby into Jane's arms.

She's light but somehow solid. Her fingers are long and tapered, her fingernails like tiny pearls. Her breathing is so even and gentle.

"I've never held a baby before," Jane whispers.

"Put it on the list," Weller says with a smile.

She holds the baby in the nursery for two hours. It's like a religious experience. There's nothing like it. Something about the baby is mesmerizing - every soft curve and gentle movement is hypnotic and new.

"Um, Weller says you might not be able to understand me yet," Jane says awkwardly. "But Patterson says that doesn't matter, that we should talk to you like you understand everything."

The baby lets out a soft hum.

"My name is Jane. It's not my real name. Although it seems more and more like my real name the longer I'm here. I don't know what my name is, I don't know where I came from, I don't know why I'm here, I don't know what I'm supposed to do here. So I guess we're not that different."

"Surprisingly deep thoughts, with Jane Doe." Patterson's voice sounds amused.

Jane turns. Patterson stands in the doorway, leaning on her IV pole.

"It's good to see you," Jane says honestly.

"Good to see me when I'm not writhing in pain and cursing?"

"I like seeing different sides of people," Jane says honestly. "And… um… thank you. Thank you for her middle name."

Patterson approaches them slowly. "Her name's a puzzle, sort of."

She moves her fingers over the baby's fuzzy hair. "Moira is a Scottish derivative of Mary. My family is Scottish. Mary means 'beloved,' a meaning shared by the name David."

Tears glimmer in her eyes, but she continues. "And your name, Jane, means 'God is gracious.'"

"I don't think I believe in God."

"I don't," Patterson says. "But I believe that in the universe, with all its puzzles and mysteries and unexplained corners, sometimes all we can do is start at the center and work out."

"We don't do that," Jane says.

"Not with jigsaw puzzles." Patterson sits down on the chair next to Jane's. "But our team… before you came along, we were on the edges looking for a center. And now… you're our center."

"I don't think that's true," Jane says, gently handing the baby to Patterson. "She's our center now."

"So we're her framework."

Jane nods. Patterson smiles.

In her arms, the baby sighs contentedly.