Jack Carter was confused.
Not an entirely unusual state for him in Eureka, but this was different. The odd, chilly attitude he'd been getting from Jo over the past week set him on edge. Sure, there'd been some weirdness after she found out about their VR counterparts, but that had begun to fade and she was with Zane again and he'd asked Allison to marry him.
He'd thought they were good again.
Apparently not.
Fortunately for all involved, they still managed to work together and had just successfully wrangled a rogue drone that had escaped from a testing facility. All in a days work for Eureka's Sheriff and the head of Global Dynamics security.
Sitting in the silent Jeep as he drove them back to town , Jack decided that he'd had enough.
"All right, what did I do?" he asked, casting a sideways glance at Jo, who was occupying the passenger seat, a silent and foreboding presence. "I know I'm supposed to just know whatever it is that I did, but please Jo, have pity."
She held her silence for a moment before ever so slowly turning to face him. There was anger and hurt in her eyes and she muttered, "Look, I just need some time to get over making a fool of myself like that."
He blinked and ran over the past week in his mind and he failed to recall her doing anything of the sort. "What are you talking about?"
The question only seemed to piss her off. "In the infirmary, after your brain surgery." She let out a yelp of surprise when he stamped on the brakes and jerked the Jeep over to the side of the road. "What the hell!"
Jack's hands tightened on the steering wheel, knuckles going white. "Jo," he said quietly, collecting his thoughts before he turned to meet her gaze, momentarily startled instead of coolly distant. "Jo, I never talked with you after surgery. Allie and I swapped brains mid-surgery."
Jo's eyes went wide and she let out a strangled sound. "That was Allison! No wonder she hates me again."
"What happened?" Jack asked, not mentioning that¸ when Allison wasn't glowing and happy about the engagement, Allie had been in a pretty bad mood. Kevin had noticed this as well, but they couldn't recall anything either of them had done to anger her.
Shifting uncomfortably, Jo looked away from him and blurted in a rush, "I just wanted to put things to rest, you know? Zane keeps telling me that the VR they were in had a predictive algorithm that decided you and I getting together was probable, but that was in a world where we would think Zane and Allison were dead. Sure, maybe I've thought about it, but you're my best friend! That's it. Have you ever thought about us as… a couple?"
It seemed like it hurt her physically to ask the question and it took Jack a minute to process exactly what she'd said. A part of him wanted to deny it, because any other response would set Allie off, but he couldn't, not when Jo was looking at him like that. "Well, yeah," he said slowly, knowing his fair skin was probably turning red, "I mean, how could I not? You're my best friend and awesome and really…well, you know what you look like. But, like you said, the VR us happened because Allie and Zane were supposed to have been gone."
For the first time since the body jumping incident, Jo was smiling at him and Jack felt some of the heaviness lift from his heart. "Yes! See, you get it, why can't they? We haven't done anything, but they're still acting like we did."
He nodded his agreement. Since he'd proposed to Allison, Zane at least had dialed back the snarky comments and seemed less threatened, but there was still and undercurrent of tension whenever he dealt with him. "They went through a lot," he said weakly, but knew he was justifying their inappropriate behavior. "But they need to get over it. They're…."
"Insecure," Jo finished with a nod, then smiled ruefully. "Sorry about…."
Jack didn't let her finish her statement, reaching over and giving her hand a squeeze. "We're good…Aren't we?"
"Yeah," Jo replied, returning his grip. "We'd better get back before…."
The sound of Jack's phone ringing cut her off and they both glanced down to see that Allison was calling. In a move that was unusual for him, Jack hit ignore and started the car.
Allie would be pissed, but he wanted to talk to her in person about her issues with Jo. She was going to have to accept that Jo was an important person in his life and that wasn't going to change.
"Wanna grab lunch before we head back to GD?"
When Jo grinned and nodded, Jack felt better than he had in days.
Comments, pretty please? Should I leave this as a one shot or continue?