Author's Note: And here we go! Another fic finished (and so, so many left to write - for the anonymous reviewer who suggested a plot idea a couple of chapters back, I'll add it to my list, but no promises! And for the anonymous reviewer who begged for kink - I'll definitely be posting a kink-fic at some point, though I think in their relationship, Jane is the top, so that kind of reduces the interest for a lot of readers, who would be more into Dom-Kurt. I really wish I could write him as dominant too, trust me. I've tried and it doesn't work.)

I know people would be more than fine with more smut in this chapter, but I'm trying to stick to the 'smut as character development' rule and not just randomly write sex in my multi-chaptered fics just because. So there are hints, but nothing explicit here.

Three months later

Jane gritted her teeth and climbed hand over hand up the rope suspended from the ceiling, her muscles protesting the effort as she clung on with hands and knees. In around three hours, the graduation ceremony for Quantico's newest special agents would be starting—no one else was bothering to work out today. But Jane had decided her free time was better spent training than sitting around getting nervous with the other members of her graduating class.

Walking onto a stage and taking her new credentials from a guy, shaking his hand and walking off the opposite side shouldn't be such a big deal, but Jane couldn't remember ever doing anything like it before. The fact that Kurt, Reade and Patterson were all going to be there meant a lot to her. While they might not have been biological or even adopted family, they were her chosen family, and she was touched that they'd all wanted to watch her graduate.

Not that it was really much of a stretch for Reade, who'd been one of her instructors. She'd had to limit her social contact with him, since it might have brought his objectivity into question about her training, but it had eased her mind to see how happy he was in his current job.

Reaching the top of the rope, Jane silently counted to ten before sliding half of the way back down, then dropping the rest, falling into a crouch to lessen the impact on her legs. As she straightened, rolling her shoulders to encourage blood to flow into her aching arms, the door to the gym opened and Reade looked in.

"Figured you'd be here," he said, grinning. "Come on."

Jane had thought the last part was directed at her, but as he spoke, he came into the gym, followed by two familiar figures, and someone she didn't recognise but didn't waste time wondering about.

"Kurt!" Jane jogged the short distance to the door and wrapped her arms tightly around him. "You're early." Belatedly, she tried to pull back. "Oh, no, don't let me get sweat on you when you look so good."

"Hey, Special Agent Doe." Kurt didn't let go for another couple of seconds, as if to prove he didn't care if she soaked him in her sweat. He gave her an all-too-brief kiss hello as they parted. "I'm so proud of you."

Smiling, Jane looked from him to her next guest. "Patterson, I'm so glad you could make it."

Patterson pulled her into a hug too—apparently nobody cared that she needed a shower. "This place brings back so many memories. My trainers were relentless."

Jane grinned at Reade. "Mine too."

"Hey, you breezed the whole thing. They should have just handed you the badge the day you got here." Reade adjusted his bow tie a little, smiling back.

She shook her head. "I understand why I had to go through it. And after five years, I was a little rusty. Still glad I was fast-tracked, though."

Kurt indicated the woman Jane didn't recognise. She was a petite Hispanic woman, around Kurt's age, with her long hair pulled back into a severe braid that made her look a little intimidating until she smiled. "Jane, this is Agent Zoë Delarosa. She's been—"

"Working with Roman," Jane realised, shaking the agent's offered hand. "Nice to meet you. Is… Is everything okay with my brother?"

Agent Delarosa's smile widened. "Actually, you should ask him yourself."

Jane blinked at her, then looked from one to the other of her friends. "What…?"

A hand on her shoulder made her turn, and she gasped. "Roman!"

Roman laughed as she threw her arms around him. "You weren't kidding. You really need to shower."

Jane released him, giving him a glare that did nothing to hide the huge smile on her face, then looked from him to Agent Delarosa. "What are you doing here? Is this safe?"

"We took down the remains of Sandstorm last week," Roman said proudly, as Delarosa nodded.

Jane had been keeping up with the case as it had progressed. The people who'd taken charge after Shepherd's capture had been less anti-government and more anti-military. Roman and the FBI had set up a taskforce with NCIS, who had initially tried to take over their investigation. The last she'd heard, Sandstorm had been planning to take out the entire San Diego naval fleet—the largest in the country—with enough nuclear material to wipe out the whole population of California.

But now Roman was telling her it was over—Sandstorm had failed.

"What? Why didn't someone tell me?" Jane demanded.

"Because I wanted to surprise you by being here for your graduation." Roman grinned. "Didn't you know the President was touring the naval base last week? We saved her life, too."

Speechless, Jane stared at him. She'd been so worried about him for so long, and now he was safe, her mind was having trouble shifting gears.

"Jane." Kurt drew her attention, taking her hand. "Roman's been given full immunity for his help. He's a free man, as of three days ago."

Jane sagged against him, the anxiety she'd been living with for the past few months finally dissipating. "Thank you," she whispered, looking from Kurt to Agent Delarosa and back again. "Thank you so much."

When she looked back at Roman, he had his arm around Patterson and was smiling down at her, a soft, affectionate look on his face. Jane's relief became confusion. "Wait a minute. What is this?"

Patterson shot her an apologetic look. "So, I kinda sorta…started dating your brother. I signed on to help the taskforce after Weller told me what was going on, and we got talking about your tattoos and the puzzles behind them, and…" She shrugged. "I know it might be kind of weird for you, but I figured at least I know that he used to be a terrorist already."

Jane gave up on trying to process everything, shaking her head.

"Okay, guys, my brain is about to explode right now. If anyone else has any huge revelations for me, save them for after my graduation ceremony, okay?" She shook her head, looking down at her sweaty workout gear. "Do you guys mind grabbing a coffee or something while I get a shower?"

"Come on, guys. There's a great coffee shop not far from here." Reade opened the door and herded everyone out. Soon she and Kurt were the only ones left in the gym.

Jane rested her head on his shoulder, sighing. "I'm so glad you're here."

Kurt kissed the top of her head. "I know how worried you've been about Roman, but you don't have to anymore. He's safe, and he and Patterson actually seem like a good fit when you get used to the idea."

"I think I'll get used to the idea some other time. For now, I'm just not even gonna think about it." She looked up at Kurt, making an effort to reset her brain to where it had been before Roman had sneaked in. "I missed you so much."

He kissed her gently, and she lost herself in his arms for long moments, regaining her equilibrium. "I can't believe I get to take you home for good today."

Jane could hardly believe it, either. Their separation had only been for two months, and he'd visited on a weekend around a month ago, but it seemed like an eternity. "Can we just fast-forward to the part where we get back to our apartment and you carry me to bed, and we stay there all weekend?"

Kurt raised an eyebrow suggestively. "We could, but I thought you needed to take a shower before your ceremony, and I was planning to help scrub your back."

"Hmmm… Fine, we can skip the fast-forward." Jane took his hand and pulled him towards the locker room, extremely happy to focus on the present for now.

"This place is a trip down memory lane, huh?" Zoë Delarosa looked around the large room, with its stage and podium at one end, and its rows upon rows of seating. "Remember walking across that stage and getting our own badges?"

Kurt pretended to think about it. "Vaguely. Through the mists of time."

He'd been twenty-one when he'd first graduated and started his on-the-job training at the Philadelphia field office. Bethany Mayfair had been his direct superior, and she'd scared the shit out of him as she'd taught him how to be a good agent. When Mayfair had taken a job as a Supervisory Special Agent at the NYO, she'd persuaded him to come along with her, and by the time she'd stepped up to being Deputy Director, she'd told him she'd taught him pretty much all he needed. He'd moved up the ladder to SSA not long after, and held the position for around six years before Jane Doe arrived. Mayfair had still had valuable lessons to impart, though—not least, that nobody was perfect, and that corruption could arise in the least likely of places.

He wondered what Mayfair would think of Jane becoming a fully qualified agent. Despite the way she'd died—confused and enraged by Jane's involvement with Oscar—Kurt thought she'd approve of the way Jane had redeemed herself.

Sitting on Kurt's other side, Patterson sighed fondly. "I was so proud to get my badge. I had awful stage fright on graduation day, though." She glanced over at Roman. "You think Jane's nervous?"

"Probably. You're forgetting—I don't know her as well as you do. She isn't the same person she was before the ZIP. Remi would have been fine, but Jane..." He shrugged.

"She's not a huge fan of having everyone stare at her," Kurt said. "I guess when your first few memories are of being stared at and puzzled over by various members of law enforcement, that doesn't exactly build confidence."

"I can't even imagine," Zoë murmured. "I had no idea about most of Jane's case until I read the file as history for our case, and what she put herself through…" She shook her head.

Roman gave her a rueful look. "Shepherd raised her army of two well. And once an idea gets in Remi's head…"

"She'll do what she wants, no matter what you say," Kurt filled in, unable to stop himself from smiling. And I love her for it. And despite it.

"You're a brave man for taking that on, Weller." Roman grinned at him, and they shared a look of tolerant understanding as the ceremony began.

There was the usual speech about fidelity, bravery and integrity, a little more long-winded than Kurt remembered from his own ceremony. He noticed Patterson smothering a yawn before the graduates were announced, in alphabetical order.

When Jane's name was called, and she strode across the stage to the centre podium, Jane's friends—both newly made at the Academy and her guests here to see her graduate—added cheers and whistles to the applause. All of the new agents wore sharp grey business suits, and Kurt fleetingly wondered if he could persuade Jane to leave hers on for the drive home, so he could take it off her piece by piece when they got back to New York. Dismissing the thought, he applauded until his hands hurt as Jane was given her official FBI identification and badge. She shot a quick, shy smile in her friends' direction as she left the stage.

After that, the rest of the ceremony passed quickly, and Jane returned to them at the end, hugging them and accepting congratulations before admiring her shiny new ID in its leather wallet.

"You'll get sick of it soon enough. It'll get wrinkled, or suspects will spit on it…" Patterson rolled her eyes.

"You never got over that time, did you?" Reade joined them from where he'd been sitting with the rest of the instructors, and enfolded Jane in a hug. "Congratulations, Agent Doe."

"Do you hug all your new graduates?" she asked, laughing. "Or is this that 'special treatment' you said you couldn't give me when I asked if you wanted to go grab a drink?"

"Hey, you're not in my class anymore. I'll buy you ten drinks if you want." He cast an amused look at Kurt. "Then you can sleep it off all the way back to New York."

"Actually, I'd rather have something to eat. Want to grab lunch before we all go our separate ways?" Jane suggested.

Kurt noticed a familiar face in the crowd and blinked, startled. Is that…? Before he could confirm what he thought he'd seen, a couple of people walked through his line of vision, and by the time he focused again, there was no one there.

"Hold that thought. I'll be right back." He kissed the top of Jane's head distractedly and headed for the exit, where he was reasonably sure he'd find…

"Tasha!"

Zapata slowed at his call, but didn't turn around. Kurt caught up to her, frowning. "I thought it was you. You okay?"

She wiped a tear from her face and nodded. "Yeah. I just… I wanted to be there for Jane's graduation, but I knew she and Reade wouldn't want to see me, so I didn't tell anyone I was coming. Even Patterson doesn't know."

Kurt sighed and pulled his friend into a hug. He still didn't understand why she'd chosen to leave the FBI for the CIA, and he was still pissed at her for it, but it was hard not to sympathise with her obvious pain and longing for the friends she'd lost by doing so. "Tasha, it's obvious you miss us. Is this job really worth it?"

She smiled sadly, pulling back. "What, you think Jane and Reade are gonna magically forgive me just because I quit? I've been in this job four years now, Weller. Maybe if I'd left after six months, but not now. The things I've done… Anyway, people can't go back, they can only go forward."

"Yeah? Well, Jane was a tattoo artist for five years, and now she's back at the FBI."

"That's different." Zapata shook her head. "When she was there before, it was as a Trojan horse, then as a pawn of the NSA. Now she's chosen it as a career in its own right. It's not like she just left a job and came back to it."

Kurt nodded in the direction of the ceremony hall. "Even though she's mad at you, I think it would mean something to Jane to know you're here. Reade, too."

Zapata shrugged. "Then tell them I was here. But I can't stay." She turned to go.

"Zapata?" Jane's incredulous voice behind them made Tasha visibly flinch.

Kurt looked around to see the rest of the group approaching. Patterson said something to Roman and Zoë, who hung back as Reade and Jane drew level with Kurt and Zapata. Patterson joined them a moment later.

"What are you doing here?" Jane asked sharply.

Kurt put his hand on her shoulder, hoping to calm her a little. "She came to see you graduate."

"I knew you wouldn't want to see me, so I wasn't going to come over. But Weller noticed me as I was leaving." Zapata met Jane's eyes for a brief moment. "Congratulations. Really. I'll… I'll go now."

As she began to walk away, everyone exchanged looks of consternation and concern. As Kurt had expected, Jane's strong sense of empathy overruled her anger, and she called, "Tasha."

Her body language defensive, Zapata turned and waited.

Jane crossed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around Tasha, who looked stunned, then embraced Jane in return, struggling not to break down in tears. Kurt exchanged looks with Reade and Patterson, cocking his head in Jane's and Tasha's direction.

Patterson wrapped her arms around Tasha from behind, beginning a group hug. "You should have told me you were coming, silly."

Kurt joined them, a lump forming in his throat as he heard Tasha sob. He joined the hug, looking across at Reade with a raised eyebrow.

Reade sighed and walked over, completing the team comfort-pile. "You really are your own worst enemy, you know that, Tash?"

"I'm so sorry." Zapata's voice was muffled in the centre of the embrace. "I didn't know Keaton was gonna be my immediate boss, and by the time I realised how screwed up it was, it was too late, and you all hated me. So I just carried on. I tried to make the CIA my new family, but…"

"Yeah, like Keaton and his merry band of bastards could ever replace us," Reade joked gently, as they all separated. Patterson handed Zapata a tissue, as Kurt put his arm around Jane, and Reade stood by his old partner protectively.

"We're all going to grab some food, if you want to come," Jane offered.

Kurt's heart swelled with love at the olive branch she was offering. Maybe it was because she'd once been the black sheep of the team, distrusted and disliked by everyone after the revelation of her betrayal. She knew how it felt to be on the outside. Whatever her reason, her compassion made him so damn proud.

"I don't want to put any extra drama in your special day—" Tasha protested.

"You're not getting out of this one," Kurt said. "As your former boss, I'm ordering you to come and eat with us."

Tasha blew her nose while she hesitated, but then she nodded, with a genuine but shaky smile. "Okay. Sounds good. Thanks, everyone."

It had been a long, emotional rollercoaster of a day—her graduation, Roman's immunity deal and meeting Agent Delarosa, bidding farewell to new friends she'd made at the Academy, re-bonding with Tasha—and Jane was exhausted by the time she and Kurt arrived back in New York City that evening.

As they carried Jane's luggage up from the car to the apartment, she couldn't quite believe that the transitional period was over. Since she and Kurt had gotten together, she'd spent a month apart from him in Los Angeles, then almost a month living with him before she'd headed for Quantico. Now they had no more imminent separations, and their life together stretched out ahead of them.

The sight of the living room made something relax in her chest, and she let her bag slide to the floor, smiling up at Kurt. "It's good to be home."

"And it's so, so good to have you home." Kurt set down the bags he'd been carrying and pulled her into a kiss. "Welcome back, Jane."

Her weariness receding, Jane looked up at him through her eyelashes. "So, remember what I mentioned about us getting home and you carrying me to the bed so we could stay there all weekend?"

"I guess that part's now, huh?" Kurt lifted her off her feet, and she wrapped her arms around his waist, clinging to his shoulders as he carried her down the hall to the bedroom.

She hit the mattress with a disorienting bounce, and by the time she figured out which way was up, Kurt had joined her. She melted into his kiss, sighing with contentment and entwining her fingers with his.

The past five years had been a struggle to find herself, to define herself outside of the NYO, the tattoo casefile and Sandstorm. But as she faced the future with Kurt—the man she'd loved for longer than she'd previously dared to admit—she now felt like she knew who she was, without the spectre of her past looming over her, and the path she'd chosen felt right.

This was where she wanted to be.

Final Author's Note: Thank you so much for reading! Any squees, criticism, Blindspot chatter or writing advice are very much appreciated. :)