Weller didn't even notice what had happened at first. He was too busy trying to take out the double snipers on top of the cargo ship to pay attention to much else. Reade and Zapata had been attempting to rush the enormous freighter, but the second they'd moved into position, snipers had popped up, holding them off. Jane was on the other side of the yard, unable to aid, so it was left to him to take out the snipers. He hit one, watched him crash down on the first level of the ship, but couldn't bag the second. It hardly mattered, though, for the moment he'd the first, the other had disappeared, and that had given Zapata and Reade time to board the ship.

Weller knew there were at least four other suspects on the ship, so he had to follow behind, cover their backs. He radioed the team with his position, waited for their acknowledgment, and then ducked out from behind the shipping container he'd been using as cover without looking back.

It had been a stupid mistake. A careless mistake.

But at the time, all he'd been thinking of was Tasha and Reade pinned down inside, and Jane tied up God knew where or how, and he couldn't spare a moment even to check out for himself. He had to get to them.

Three shots rang out behind him, un-silenced and precise.

Weller spun around at the sound, his gun immediately up, only to watch one of his suspects fall to his knees, gun in hand, and then face-plant down onto the pavement. Blood pooled around him from the three holes in his back, and Weller stared, heart pounding with far too much adrenaline for 2 PM on a Tuesday afternoon, as the team shouted in his ear, demanding to know if he was okay. He could hear Jane's voice, frantic above the rest, could hear her breath, coming in hard, as she ran to his location.

He tried to tell them he was fine, tried to tell Jane to stay in position, but nothing came out. Because he could now see the second shooter, the man that had saved his life, coming towards him with an M4 held tightly in his hands. Weller immediately brought his own weapon up—the fact that this man had just saved his life didn't mean he wasn't about to end it, too—and the approaching man surprised him by smiling. He stepped over the dead body, one hand still on his rifle, and the other, palm-up, in what appeared to be a sarcastic half-surrender. A wry smile twitched on his lips.

"You're welcome for the help, Special Agent Weller," he called out.

The man almost sounded like he was trying not to laugh, and Weller took an instinctive step forward, his finger tightening on the trigger. He could still hear Jane's breath in his ear still as she ran, could hear the updates from Reade and Zapata, but he paid attention to none of that. He kept his eyes on the tall man stepping towards him, kept his gun up, and pushed the pounding of his heart into the far corner of his mind.

"Who are you?" Weller demanded. "Drop your weapon and identify yourself."

The man smiled again. "Ah, that might be tricky. You see, I'm—"

But Weller never heard who he was, or who he wasn't. All he heard were two shots, booming across the shipyard, and then a resounding shriek so horrid and loud that he had to rip his earbud from his ear so he wouldn't go deaf. It hardly helped, though, because Jane's scream was no longer only in his ear; it was now just behind him, now streaking past him, as she sprinted to the man slipping to his knees, the man that had saved Weller's life, the man that had just taken two bullets to the chest and was now spitting up blood—

Weller turned at once, searching for the shooter, and caught sight of him as another shot went off—this one missing Jane by less than a foot. Heart slamming against his ribs, head beating against his skull, Weller did his best to stay calm as he took aim, breathed, let off as many shots as he could—and miraculously watched the second sniper fall, pitching off the side of the cargo ship and into the water.

"You're okay, you're okay, you're okay—"

Jane's desperate chanting cut through the momentary fog in his head, and he started for her, and the unidentified man, before he remembered the rest of the team. He wrestled his comm from his shoulder, and shoved it back in his ear as he turned towards the cargo ship again, just in time to hear Reade and Zapata report that they'd taken care of the rest of their suspects: they'd apprehended one alive; the rest were dead. Weller didn't even have time to congratulate them before Zapata was cutting in, demanding to know if Jane was still alive. Weller could still hear Jane's shriek reverberating in his ears as he assumed the other two could. Of course they thought she'd died; it had sounded like she had. He swallowed, glancing over to her. She was hunched over the shot man, whispering words Weller couldn't hear, her face pressed close to his, so close—

"Fine," he bit out, knowing it was a lie, but knowing it was all he could say at the moment. "She's fine," he told Reade and Zapata. And then he instructed them to bring their remaining suspect off the freighter, so he could be transported back to the NYO.

He took his earbud out then, and carefully put the safety back on his rifle. He took one step towards Jane, and then another. Her voice rose, and came to him as the beating of his lessened, and the adrenaline pumping through him gradually faded. He shuffled forward, listening even as he did not want to hear. Even from this distance, it was clear the man was already dead. Nothing Jane could say would bring him back, but her voice was adamant nonetheless.

"You're gonna be okay. You promised, remember? You swore you'd stay with me. You said I'd never be alone again. You said—"

When her words crumbled into tears, Weller finally found the courage to take those last few steps, and to reach out a hand to touch her shoulder gently. "Jane, hey..."

"Do not touch me!"she shrieked, throwing him off so violently that Weller jerked back at once, more frightened in this moment with her than he had been all day. "Do not ever touch me!" Jane screamed into the still air, and Weller drew away as if attacked, and faded into the background as she wept, and crouched closer to the dead man. She curled her entire body around him, as if he could still be protected, as if she could take the bullets he'd suffered, and bring him back to life.

When he heard two pairs of footsteps jogging his way, Weller did not look up. He knew it was Reade and Zapata, and he had nothing to say to them at this point. Zapata's lighter tread slowed first, a few yards back, but Reade's heavier tread kept up right until he was at Weller's side.

The special agent stared for a moment in silence and then turned his head towards Weller, asking in a whisper, "Who is that?" Anxiety and confusion etched deep creases in his usually clear, confident face.

Weller shook his head. "Don't know," he whispered back, keeping his voice low enough so as not to disturb Jane. "I've never seen him before in my life. He came out of nowhere..." Weller didn't know how to explain the rest, didn't know how to put into words the look on that man's face, the way he'd known his, Weller's, name, the way he'd saved his life and then died for it...

He found his voice again when he watched Zapata walk right past him, and make a beeline for Jane. Jane's order to stay away was still ringing in his ears, and he didn't want Tasha to suffer the same. He called out her name, taking a half-step forward to stop her, but she shook him off, too. There was a grim determination in her face that told him she knew what she was doing, more than he ever had, or ever could.

He hung back with Reade then, and watched as Zapata carefully made her way to Jane's side. She knelt down with her, and when she put her hand on Jane's back, the tattooed woman didn't flinch. She didn't even look up. Zapata leaned close to her, and for a while, Weller and Reade watched from yards away while she whispered words they couldn't hear into Jane's ear. They watched Jane pitch forward until her head rested on the man's chest, watched as Zapata hugged her tightly, and pressed her forehead into her shoulder. They watched as Jane shook and drew back, sitting back on her heels. They watched as she wiped at her face, and hiccupped through a few sobs, before she bent forward, took the dead man's face in her hands, and kissed him.

"Oh, fuck," Reade whispered quietly at his side, taking the words right out of Weller's mouth.

Even though he still couldn't hear, Weller could imagine what Jane was whispering now as she pulled away from the man—I love you, I love you, I love you—and his gut twisted at the thought. Though he had faced his fair share of death, he could not imagine what it was like for Jane, who had no one, knew no one, to lose someone like this.

He felt again, that instinct to go to her, to comfort her, and even if his own self-preservation instincts hadn't held him back, there was Reade's hand suddenly on his shoulder, his fingers squeezing, his silent looking saying, Leave it to Zapata.

So they did. They called for backup, for the morgue, and they waited. When their reinforcements arrived, Weller sent Reade with their remaining suspect to head back to the NYO. He stayed behind with Zapata and Jane when the coroner arrived, just in case Jane needed to be held back.

She didn't, as it turned out. Whatever Zapata had said to her seemed to have calmed her somewhat. She stood, still and stony and red-eyed, as the coroner and his assistant bagged the body and transferred it to the back of the truck. Jane climbed in without a word, and Zapata followed, and when the truck pulled away, Weller drove behind in the SUV.

He knew he should be going back to the NYO, should be sitting down with their suspect for interrogation, and debriefing with Mayfair, but he couldn't focus on any of that, not with Jane like this. So he messaged Reade to hold off on interrogation, and to let Mayfair know that she'd receive a full report once he was back in the Bureau. He pulled up behind the coroner's truck at the hospital, and watched from afar as Jane and Zapata got out. They didn't say anything to each other, but Jane followed the coroner and his assistant inside, and Zapata made her way to Weller's SUV.

Neither said anything for a moment after she'd climbed inside and shut the door. They didn't even look at each other.

Finally, Zapata buckled her seatbelt and said, "We should get back. Jane will probably be a while, and you know Mayfair's waiting."

Weller nodded without question, and pulled back onto the main road. They drove in silence for about ten minutes, until they arrived at the Bureau's parking garage. Weller pulled into his customary space on the third level, and cut the ignition. Neither he nor Zapata made a move to unbuckle their seatbelts, or get out of the car.

Finally, because he couldn't wait any longer, Weller asked, "Did she say anything?" And then, after a second, because that didn't feel right, he amended: "Anything I need to know before I go to Mayfair?"

Zapata shook her head. They went up to the sixteenth floor without exchanging another word.

Mayfair was not pleased with his version of events, but after she had spoken with both Reade and Zapata, and they had corroborated his story, she looked merely concerned. As much as the rest of them, she wanted to know who the nameless dead man had been, and why he had saved Weller's life—why he had even been thereto do so, in the first place.

"I'll have to speak to Jane about this, too," she said as Weller was heading for the door. "Where is she?"

"Injured," Weller replied immediately, the first excuse that came to mind. "She's at New York-Presbyterian."

Mayfair pursed her lips a moment, and then nodded. "I'll speak to her tomorrow, then," she said.

Weller nodded in secret relief, and gratitude, and then left her office. He passed by Zapata and Reade's desks without pausing, leaving them to finish up their case reports, and then went on towards interrogation.

It didn't take long. The one suspect they'd manage to take alive was a kid—barely older than twenty—and he'd seen so many of his buddies go down in sprays of red today that he coughed up all he knew at once, which turned out to be quite a lot. Usually, Weller would be pleased with such a turnout. Overjoyed, even. But the whole time the kid was blurting out valuable information, crying as he did so, all Weller could do was think of Jane, and that dead man, and wonder how she was doing at the morgue. Every time the kid offered a new answer, Weller forgot the last one. It was a good thing every interrogation was recorded both visually and audibly; he could review later. And it was a good thing they didn't need to act on this information at once—they could pass it off to the Bureau's gang task force, and move onto the next case. As usual.

But when that time came, he could only listen to Patterson's debrief about the next tattoo for five minutes before he had to excuse himself. He told her he was going to the bathroom; he went down to the parking garage. He was back at this hospital likely before she'd realized he wasn't coming back—not that it mattered. Patterson wouldn't go telling on him to anyone.

He waited outside the morgue for nearly an hour and a half. As the minutes ticked by, and the ambulances sped in and sped away, Weller told himself this was a stupid idea. He told himself he should go back to work, that either Jane was going to stay in there all night, or she'd already left. He told himself he was not her security detail, that she hadno security detail anymore, and he found himself wondering that, if she did, would he know the identity of that mystery dead man through their reports?

After a few minutes of deliberation, he thought no. He remembered, as if from a very, very long time ago, the night she'd come to him outside his apartment and kissed him. She'd said she'd ditched her detail; she'd said she'd wanted time for them alone. No doubt that dead man, whoever he had been, had been important enough to her that she'd wanted to see him without prying eyes, too.

Weller shifted his eyes from the steering wheel, back to the morgue entrance. He remembered something Mayfair had told him, months ago, about how Jane had requested that her detail be dropped. He wondered suddenly, if that's what this had been about. He had thought, at first, that it had been about him. She'd requested the drop just a day after they'd kissed; he had thought it had been because she'd wanted to see more of him, and in private. But then she'd stood him up at the park, and he had pushed those hopes aside... He had never once entertained the possibility that she'd already had someone else, found someone else. It was disgustingly egotistical, he realized now, to think that he was the very center of her universe. To think that he was the only thing that mattered, the only person she could possibly be interested in—it was absurd.

At yet, still, today had come as a shock. And part of that shock, if he was being brutally honest with himself, had been borne out of jealousy. He had been jealous, that she had chosen this unknown dead man over him; jealous that she had screamed when he'd died as if she'd been the one that'd been killed. Jealous that she'd kissed him, wept over him, even though he'd been dead.

Jealous that she had had something, someone, when he had had nothing and no one.

He had sunk to the depths of his self-centered pity party when he saw the morgue doors open out of the corner of his eye, and spotted her. He turned and saw her just as she looked up and saw him, and there was a moment, where she might've run away, but she did nothing. She didn't even blink at the sight of him, didn't lose a step. She simply walked right towards his SUV and climbed inside as if it had all been prearranged. He drove them both to her apartment in silence, and then walked her to her door.

As she was taking out her keys, he cleared his throat. They had not spoken yet, not since she'd screamed at him not to touch her, and he knew now, before he left her, was the time to say something. Suddenly, he found himself wishing Zapata were here. She had known how to talk to Jane; she had known how to help a friend through a murder. He did not have one word, be it comfort or not.

Finally, all that came out of his mouth was, "You know he saved my life today."

Jane nodded, pushing one of her keys into the lock. "Yeah, he does that a lot." Her face pinched, and then she bent forward until her forehead was pressed against the wood of the door. "Did," she whispered. "Did that a lot."

She turned the key in the lock, and shoved it open. She did not say goodbye, she did not slam the door, and for whatever reason, Weller took that as an invitation. To step inside, to continue speaking.

"Why was he there?" he asked quietly. Why did he have a weapon? he almost added, but he knew he was treading on shaky ground here, and that only one question at a time—if any—would be permitted.

"He was there to protect me," Jane replied. "Us," she added, depositing her keys in a bowl by the sink, as she walked into the kitchen. He knew from her voice that the us included Zapata and Reade as well.

"So he's been there before?" Weller surmised. How long? he wanted to ask. How many times? How did he know—

"He likes to keep an eye out for me," Jane answered simply, saying nothing and everything all at once. Weller didn't mention that she'd slipped back into the present tense again. He lingered at the edge of her kitchen, not sure if he was meant to follow her inside. She said nothing, but grabbed a glass and a bottle of bourbon from a bottom cabinet. She poured herself a serving, drank. She poured herself another serving, and—

"So you knew him?" Weller asked, forcing in an interruption, not wanting to stand there and watch her get hammered—and not wanting to be a part of it, either. "The man that died today... You knew him? Before all this?" Weller didn't know if he was asking about before the shipyard, or before her amnesia, but it didn't matter at this point.

Jane let out a brief breath that could've been a laugh, or a scoff. Or a precursor to a sob. "Yeah, I knew him."

She considered the glass in her hands, still full, and then threw it in the sink. Not just the alcohol, but the glass itself, and it shattered so loudly in the silent room that it made Weller jump inside his own skin. Jane simply stared, as if she had not heard a thing.

"I knew him for years and years… and I knew him for three and a half months." She drew closer to the sink, her eyes falling to the shards there, focusing on the mess. "How do you mourn someone like that?" she whispered. "How do you mourn someone you half-knew? I don't even know what I'm supposed to feel. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I—"

She started to reach out a hand into the sink, towards the mess of broken glass, and Weller rushed to her side, pushing her hands away as gently as he could manage. He didn't want her around sharp objects right now.

"Just sit," he told her, pushing her aside, like she was a child. "Just sit, I'll take care of this."

He had meant that she should sit at the dining room table, or on the couch, but when he looked up after he'd collected every errant shard of glass, he found her sitting on the floor of the kitchen. She'd sunk down from where she'd been standing, and she now sat huddled against the counter, her knees drawn to her chest. She was crying silently, and he forced himself to do away with the debris before attempting to comfort her. Again, he wished Zapata were here. Again, he wished he knew more about the situation, knew who that man had been, and who he'd been to Jane.

But he figured even if he did know more, he wouldn't know what to do. It seemed even Jane didn't know what to do. As he watched, she went from full-on convulsions to completely still, staring at the wall in front of her. He thought of the glass he'd cleaned up, and he was glad. She was bouncing to extremes, and he didn't want to know what she would've done, if she'd been at the wrong extreme while she reached for those shards.

He whispered her name quietly, but she did not look up. He bent down in front of her, disrupting her eyeline, and spoke again, but it still took a few seconds for her to see him. Weller waited patiently; he knew who she was imagining in his place; knew whose body his was morphing into in her red, tear-blurred eyes. He waited until she blinked, and a different sort of recognition flashed through her.

"I want you to know I'm here for you, if you need anything." Weller paused, and thought to touch her, but her scream from earlier was still in his head—would probably always be in his head—and so he held back. He clamped one hand around his own knee and continued, "Jane, I know it's really hard right now. I know you can't see past what happened this afternoon, and you might not for a while. But that's okay. You—You can take leave if you need it, and up your sessions with Borden, and—"

She wasn't listening anymore, he could tell. Her eyes were faraway, even as she looked him in the face, and the tears were back. It took all of his willpower to resist reaching out to wipe them away; it took all of his willpower not to reach forward and crush her in a hug, to hold her so tight hat she would have no choice but to feel alive again, and safe.

"I'm here for you," he finally said. It was a weak offer, but it was the most he had, at this point. "If you need me, I'm here, okay?"

He waited a moment, waited for some kind of sign, some acknowledgment, but she did nothing. Didn't even nod. He tried not to care, tried not to blame her. He had been through grief like this, too—or at least something like it—and he knew how it took everything from you, and twisted what little was left into shapes you couldn't recognize, and things you didn't want to see. Weller pushed himself back up to his feet then, thinking he would call, later tonight, just to check that she was okay, that she'd eaten. He'd call again in the morning, and tell her she didn't have to come to work if she didn't want to. He would call every hour if it meant he was doing something to help.

"Why are you leaving?"

He turned at the question, surprised to hear her speaking again. He was just stepping out of the kitchen, a couple feet from the front door, and when he looked back, she was still crumpled on the floor. But there was a look in her eyes—she could see him, really see him. He did not think he should like the shiver it sent through him, but he did.

He searched for an excuse in his suddenly empty mind. "Well, I'm—"

"Stay," she interrupted in a whisper, and there was something dark in her voice, something slow, that put a thrill of fear in him. A thrill of excitement.

"Stay?" he repeated dumbly, as if he did not know the word. And, in this context, he did not.

She nodded, and pushed out a hand onto the linoleum beside her. He watched her, knowing what this meant, knowing what it all meant, and yet... Still wanting it anyway.

Do not touch me, she had screamed at him this afternoon. Do not ever touch me.

He would be lying if he said he wanted to erase those words from his memory, from her lips. He wanted to destroy them and all they stood for; he wanted to hear nothing from her except, Touch me, touch me, touch me. He wanted to be that dead man, just so he could feel her lips on his, and taste her devotion in her tears.

"I want you to stay," Jane said, and it was much less of a request and much more of a command. And despite his years in control, and all his leadership training, Weller found himself bowing to her order at once.

Hadn't he, after all, dreamed of a moment like this? Hadn't he fantasized about her saying something like this to him, just before she put her hands on him, her mouth on his, just before she took off her clothes and—

"Sit," she said, and he did.

He took his customary place at her side, trying not to think of those old hopes and dreams, trying not to acknowledge that they were not old, not really. Just two days ago, he had found himself distracted from his paperwork, staring at her at work, wondering what she would do if he showed up outside her apartment one night, and kissed her out of the blue, as she had him.

As if reading his mind, she turned towards him after he sat down, and bent her head to his. He let out a sigh, his whole body shuddering, when he felt one of her hands reach for his far shoulder, to turn him properly towards her. It was until she ran a hand through his hair, and down his neck, and cupped his cheek, that he found his voice.

"You don't want this," he whispered. He was close enough that he could smell her breath: could smell the trace of alcohol there, and the overwhelming sobriety. "You don't want..." It pained him to say it, but it needed to be said: "You don't want me, Jane."

She shook her head, and to his surprise, actually laughed quietly. He opened his eyes, and she met them, whispering, "You and him, always telling me what I don't want." She curled a hand around his ear, and hooked her fingers tightly beneath his jaw to keep him close. "You know what? I'll tell you exactly what I told him when he said that: shut up, and kiss me."

She didn't wait for a reply—she dove forward, pressing her mouth to his, and there was nothing gentle or innocent about her kiss this time, as there had been that first time. The first time, outside his apartment, had been tentative and slow and utterly sweet. This second time was ravenous and forceful and desperate. So desperate. He could taste it on her tongue, taste it on her lips; he could feel it through her fingertips: the need to forget, to rewrite the past. The need to move forward as if nothing had happened, and nothing could happen. The need to own the present, simply because nothing else, ever, could hope to be controlled.

He had felt such an urge before. It was not a good whim to give into. But it was often impossible to refute.

When she surged into him, pushing forward until her chest met his, he gave up even pretending to fight. He tangled a hand in her dark hair, took her mouth with his, and pressed himself into her, too. With only that first, tender kiss to look back on, he expected her to melt beneath his advances, expected her to lie back on the floor and let him move atop him, let him lead the way.

But she didn't. Instead, she met him beat for beat; she pushed her tongue into his mouth and dragged her hands through his hair and climbed into his lap. She rocked into him, her hips fierce and determined in their quest to have him, feel him, and when she started to tear through his clothes, he was not surprised anymore. He did not ask her if she knew what she was doing, or if this was really what she wanted, or if she wanted to take things slow. He knew without having to speak that she would not permit questions, would not abide by hesitation, and the deepest, most male part of him, was glad for this.

He didn't want to ask questions, didn't want to get answers, at least not right now. He didn't want to do anything except feel her naked body on his, around his, and he got his wish, no matter how selfish and shortsighted it was.

Bad idea, the small pocket of reason left within him warned.

Don't give a shit, the rest of him shouted back.

They didn't end up moving to her bed, or another room: they fucked right there, on her kitchen floor. He couldn't call it making love, because that was not what it had been, and calling it simple sex took away the heat of it, took the sharp edge of violence from it. Because it was violent: the way she dug her nails into his back, and shoved their hips together so hard they bruised, and bit his lip so hard he bled into her mouth. It was more violent than any sex he'd had in years.

And it felt better than any sex he'd had in years. Maybe in all his life.

Still, part of him was disappointed that when she came, it was his, Weller's, name that escaped from between her lips. He had wanted to hear the other man's name, had wanted to put a label the face floating between them; he had wanted to recognize the ghost haunting them for what it was. He kissed her hard afterwards, pushing himself to the end along with her, and he swore as he did so that he could almost taste the silent name on her lips, just as he could feel the aftershocks of her orgasm. He could almost count the syllables, see the letters in his mind's eye.

But it never came to him in full form; she did not allow it. She allowed him everything else: allowed his fantasies to be reality, allowed his body inside hers, allowed him to make believe that he was bringing her real comfort, or somehow doing the right thing. But she never said that other name.

And it was horrible, how desperately he wanted even that last, tiny thing from her. How he wanted to take everything from her, even this; how he wanted them to share everything together, even him.

He was at the door when he she finally spoke.

"I wonder if he's laughing to himself in the morgue."

Weller turned, the hair on the back of his neck standing up. Was it possible they'd just fucked each other into insanity? But when he caught her eye, she looked still, serious. He could tell she saw him when she looked at him.

"He always said this would happen," she explained, as if that explained anything. She smiled the smallest bit, and then the tears came again. He heard the next few words through shaking sobs. "I guess he'd at least be relieved I waited until he was dead." A cold laugh cut through her tears then, as she wiped at them viciously: "Jesus, what kind of a monster am I? He saves your life, dies for it, and I… What? I fuck you because I'm lonely and sad? What kind of person does that? Who honors the dead like that?"

Lots of people do, Weller thought.

But instead he asked, "Did you love him?"

She blinked up at him, quiet for a moment, as she considered him, and his question. "I don't know," she said finally. "Do you love that little girl that disappeared all those years ago?"

For once, he didn't have an answer. The immediate Yesthat came to mind felt false and bitter on his lips. It felt like an apology for wrongs done, and not a simple, honest feeling. Jane nodded along with his silent thoughts, as if she could hear them.

"Same here," she whispered. "I think we've all lost too much time with each other to be wholly certain of what we feel anymore."

Then she got up and went to bed, and he left her apartment and drove himself home.

A/N: Thank you for reading. Reviews would be most appreciated if you have thoughts! :)