Painting Tarots

Episode 1.01 Tag

His name is on her back.

Kurt Weller doesn't believe it at first, but it's there, plain as day.

The Jane Doe (because she doesn't have a name) is barely able to control her own body, so the men in suits try to hold her up. Her eyes are empty and vacant, like they're staring at something no one else can see. They cover her up again, his name only one of hundreds of tattoos hidden by a hospital gown. And yet even though he told Mayfair he'd never seen this woman before in his life, there's something strange, something familiar about her that makes him uncomfortable in his own skin. He wracks his memory trying to remember her face.

Who are you?

He'd look back later and realize even then, when he didn't have a clue, his heart already knew what his head had refused to admit for 25 years.

The first thing Kurt notices about Jane Doe is her eyes.

They're green, so much more alive now than when they were clouded by sedative in that exam room the previous night. Then there are the tattoos on her arms, her neck; they're intricate and varied, no two the same. She makes the too white walls of the FBI interrogation room feel like a glaringly blank canvas, a gallery that would have otherwise been empty if it weren't for her sitting in it. Kurt tells himself not to stare, but he has to focus somewhere to keep himself from following the patterns of ink that spiral up her arms and down her neck. Her face (and those disconcertingly bright green eyes) is the only thing left, and suddenly not staring becomes much harder than it should have been. It's just the two of them and their closest FBI friends behind the observation window, but it feels much more intimate than that.

Kurt remains cordial, polite, trying to help her subconscious mind coax whatever information her memory might have hidden out into the light. It's never easy, finding the balance between looking at a situation objectively, and having compassion for a victim. He's always done it well, but the personal connection in this particular scenario isn't the kind of stuff they train you for at Quantico. He can't shake the image - his name between her shoulder blades. The heavy weight that currently sits on his shoulders is one of responsibility. Was her life put in eminent danger because of him? If so, the guilt he already feels is enough to make his stomach churn.

It's an emotion he's no stranger to. He's lived with it all his life.

She's angry, frustrated, but who would blame her? He know's what that feels like too. Her eyes never leave him, desperate and searching for answers he can't give her, as if they're begging for a savior.

Please help me.

He wishes more than anything that he could.

"I know this is overwhelming, but please try. Something may come back to you." He is a perfect picture of calm, an anchor in the chaos for the woman drowning in the chair across from him. The only thing that gives him away is his own desperation, a fleeting glimmer against his steely blue eyes that peer anxiously back at her. He would never admit it, but part of him needs her to remember, not for her sake, but for his.

When she reaches for his hand, it's like electricity.

Kurt has always been naturally suspicious by nature, protective of his personal space, inclined to pull away from strangers, and sometimes even friends. His first instinct is to stop her, to push her away. Except he doesn't. Against his better judgement and his inherent reflex to recoil from the unknown, the unpredictable, some small part of him tells him to stay. She reaches for his face, and he almost stops her again, but can't bring himself to do it despite every fiber of his being wanting him to. Their eyes lock, his focus split between how uncomfortably close she is and how light her hand is against his cheek. In those few seconds the entire rest of the world fades away, and she's all that's left.

It's more than he can stand.

Jane's presence overwhelms him, the closer her proximity the harder his heart starts to race in his chest (get a hold of it, Weller). He gently moves her hand away, but he can't ignore the trail of fire her touch leaves in it's wake. He takes a breath and steadies himself.

"Anything?" He murmurs.

"No." She shakes her head, crestfallen.

She pulls away from him, and it's all he can do to hide his own disappointment.

Twenty four hours. It's ridiculous really, that in the short span of a day one person could change everything, that in one day everything he's ever told himself to believe his entire life ends up being utterly wrong. Twenty four hours since the woman who climbed out of the duffle bag in time square, the woman who sat with him in that interrogation room, has turned his world completely upside down. And what's more, in those same twenty four hours, everything he ever knew about himself has been contradicted so many times that it's making his head spin.

All because of her. Jane Doe.

It's been a full day. Chasing a bad guy across the city, only almost getting blown up once, and successfully preventing the Statue of Liberty from being leveled to the ground constitutes as a job well done in his book. He's at that point where it's been so long since he slept that he's not sure what sleep is anymore. So when she asks, Kurt's more than happy to drive Jane back to her safe house, something blessedly normal and domestic after the whirlwind they just lived through. However, it's possibly one of the shortest and longest drives he's ever had to make in his life. Half of the time he's trying to revaluate the entire day frame by frame in his head, trying to figure out the exact moment things changed. The exact moment she became more than just a suspect to him.

The other half is spent trying not to let his eyes wander from the road, which is hard when all you want to do is look at the person sitting next to you.

Since when had it become so easy for someone to bypass the carefully constructed walls of self preservation he was so good at putting up? The same walls Reade and Zapata would have said he was famous for? It's getting to him (or she's getting to him) and he's not sure what to do with that type of self realization.

Jane saves him from having to look into it much further though, for which he's eternally grateful. Standing in the hallway of the safe house with her he's reminded, with a tinge of sadness, that she's the one who needs reassurance, not him. It's remarkable really, how strong she is. Given everything that's happened, the circumstances, he's not entirely sure how she's held herself together. But in moments like this, when she's alone with him, he see's the shadow of vulnerability she keeps hidden, and he knows that she's not as invincible as she'd like everyone to think.

"How did you know I could make that shot?" Her voice is small and her eyes well up. It hurts him to see her like that, the palpable undercurrent of fear hovering around her.

"I didn't know." He's nothing if not honest, but he offers her a sincere, crooked half grin, because it's been so long he doesn't really remember how to smile. "I took a chance on you."

She's manages a weak smile in return, but that's when the levy breaks. The confident, courageous woman who had fought side by side with him all day, who was grazed by a bullet, and killed a man to protect him (to protect him), now stands in front of Kurt fighting a different battle. One where the outcome is either holding herself together or letting herself fall apart.

"None of this feels real." Jane clenches her jaw, fighting tears.

"Jane…" Kurt's eyes soften, and he takes a step toward her. "You're going to be ok. I promise."

"I don't know what that feels like."

He's always been able to pick up the pieces of his own screwed up life and stick them back together. This is different though, and Kurt doesn't know how to fix something - or someone - who's pieces are completely missing. How can he make her a promise he's not even sure he can keep? His chest tightens, and he finds himself desperately wishing he could somehow fix this, that he could find all of Jane's missing pieces and help her put them back together, to make sense of this insanity that she's fallen into. If only it were that easy.

In the time being he does the best he can with what he has, and suddenly their roles are reversed from their first meeting in interrogation the night before. This time Kurt reaches for her without hesitation, closing the gap between them, and she falls into his embrace. With a deep breath she buries her face into his shoulder and wraps her arms around his waist, while his cheek rests against the top of her head.

It surprises him how easy this is, when twenty four hours ago he would have run in the opposite direction. It surprises him how the decision to hold her is as involuntary as breathing, as if she were meant to be right there.

When he sees the scar on her neck, it explains why.

AN: Soooooo I'm back. With Blindspot fic. For those of you who followed me for my Covert Affairs fiction, I hope maybe this will entice you to watch Blindspot. The show is fantastic, and the writing and character development phenomenal. Mad kudos to Jaimie and Sully because their chemistry is awesome. Their first scene together in the pilot (POWERFUL stuff) is what hooked me.

For any new readers, hi! This is just going to be a collection of random one shots, mainly character studies I guess, I like to get inside character's heads and look at what we don't necessarily see on screen. And it'll all be canon because I only write canon and very rarely do anything besides that (#canonjunkie). It'll be mainly Jane and Kurt, and obviously Jeller because HELLOOOO the way the look at each other I just can't. Anyways, the oneshots will umbrella here in episodic-ish order, and if I get the muse to write anything beyond that (like a longer, more specific episode tag or something with more depth to it) I'll write that in it's own separate deal. Let me know what y'all think, what you want to see, I love feedback and I love discussion! I try to reply to everyone who leaves a review because it's just so fun talking about a show/characters you love with people who love them as much as you do.

If you get the title, bravo. x)

Cheers! xoxo