Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own words the characters belong to SyFy.
Prologue: Zane's New Job
Zane sat in the conference room stunned. He could barely wrap his mind around what Jo had just said much less say anything himself. He had to be dreaming, but there she was still telling the DOD investigator that he, Zane Donovan, was now in charge of putting a team together to restart the genesis project and would no longer be involved in any DOD projects.
This is what he had come to Eureka for; to work on this project, but it had been shut down after Starks's death. He'd been moved around from one project to the next since then bored out of his mind. It was the boredom and his dislike of authority that had led to most of his antics. Always pushing it until whatever team leader he'd been assigned to went running and screaming to Fargo to "Make Donovan someone else's problem before I quit." Zane hadn't seen a single project through from start to finish since he'd gotten to Eureka, he either started one only to be kicked off or came into one in the middle of it to finish.
There had to be a trick, no way was Fargo going to let Zane work on his dream project, his obsession, his baby. Much less Jo Lupo give him the security clearance to do it. Shaking his head to clear it Zane pulled his thoughts together to pay attention to what Jo was saying to the Major assigned to investigate the theft of the EMP device.
"Director Fargo and I feel that Mr. Donovan will create fewer problems for all of us if we put him on a project that he actually gives a damn about."
"I really don't care where you put him, all I know is that I don't trust him nor do I want him anywhere near any of our projects. The man's criminal record alone is enough to make me cringe even if he wasn't responsible for this latest debacle." Replied the major
Yes, well if we're through here Major I have other things to attend to today. Including getting Zane access to his new lab and setting a few ground rules with him." Was Jo's noncommittal reply.
Zane watched as the Major shook Jo's hand, gave him a curt nod and left the room. Muttering under his breath that "he wouldn't put Donovan in charge of making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich much less a multimillion dollar project."
Jo turned around to face Zane her face a mask of neutrality, something Zane really hated. Lupo was damn hard to read and it drove him nuts. This was the first time they'd been alone together since the Kiss. She was avoiding him and he knew it. True she and Fargo had been getting hammered by this investigation, the signs of stress showing on both of them, more so Fargo than her but still it was starting to show. Really the whole band of five, as Zane had taken to calling them, were all getting more and more on edge the longer this investigation took. Zane had noticed that Jo when she thought no one was around to see would drop her mask and she looked like she had the weight of the world crashing down on her. Zane waited for Jo to say something to him afraid, if he was completely honest, that if he said the wrong thing now she'd yank his dream out from under him in a heartbeat. It was still hard to reconcile the Jo Lupo he'd known with the one standing in front of him now and that Jo Lupo had been a vindictive bitch.
"You'll be able to get into the lab by the end of the day. Put a list of who you want on your team together and get it me and Fargo for final clearance."
"Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I thought you and Fargo would agree with the Major about trusting me to run anything around here." Was Zane's reply and he could have kicked himself for it. "Don't blow this" he thought to himself.
"Like I told the Major I think you'll cause fewer problems for me if you're actually on a project that you care about. Fargo and I both agree you need something that actually interests you to do, something your excited about. Shuffling you around from one project to the next that bores you within minutes hasn't been working." Jo replied with a little smile on her face.
For the second time today this Jo Lupo stunned him. How did she know this was the project he'd been dying to get his hands on? Zane had never discussed how much this project had meant to him with anyone. It wasn't his style to let anyone close enough to know how much he really cared about anything. Yet here she was talking to him like she knew him better than he knew himself.
That's when it hit him. Jo was putting as much distance has she could between the two of them. She'd found another way to avoid him by dangling the one thing she thought he wanted most in front of him. Jo didn't have a lot to do with the projects that didn't involve the DOD. It was the military projects she kept the closest eye on and got the most involved with. A project studying the beginnings of the universe wasn't something that needed her extra levels of security or expertise.
Zane pulled himself back out of his own thoughts and looked Jo in the face, gone was that little half smile; she looked like the cat that had caught the canary. She had him and she knew it, there was no way in hell he'd turn this down. Then she twisted the knife.
"I've got requests for access to lead this project from every physicist on the planet, please don't let me find out I made a colossal mistake by trusting you with it." Jo said and turned around and left. For the first time that he could think of in his life Zane felt the need to prove himself to someone, he wasn't about to let Jo down.
Zane stood alone in the conference room and pulled the ring he'd taken to wearing on a chain out of his shirt. Looking at it Zane made a promise to himself and Jo. "You're not getting rid of me that easily JoJo, I will figure out what happened to the five of you and how it affected us."
Tucking the ring back into his shirt Zane walked out of the conference room excited about his new project and the upcoming battle of wills with one beautiful Josephina Lupo. Zane Donovan wasn't bored anymore, for the first time in months he was fully engaged in his two projects.
