Zane finds Lupo's ipod when she leaves it behind one day at the gym after a workout. His curiosity gets the better of him and he decides to listen to it before he returns it. Takes place in Season 4 sometime after the Story of O2, but before Crossing Over.
Fluffiest thing I've ever written. I own none of the characters in Eureka or the town, but God couldn't I please just visit for a little while?
Our Song
He called her to let her know that he found it on his way back from the Gym. 'Wouldn't want to be accused of stealing it,' he thought snidely to himself. He'd come across the tiny silver ipod as he was finishing up with his free weights. At first he thought about leaving it with the front desk, but then he realized who it must belong to- Head of GD Security Jo Lupo. He'd seen her working out when he arrived and so he scooped the ipod up instead and put it in his pocket, leaving her the message on her voicemail while walking home.
Once home he dropped everything on the nearest flat surface and headed for the kitchen where he pulled out a bottle of beer and proceeded back to the living room to flop down on the sofa. He tried to sum up the energy to log in online and play some of the games that he'd recently downloaded, but the idea quickly bored him. As he sipped his beer the glint of the silver ipod sitting on the trunk that he had that served as a coffee table caught his eye. He wondered if she had it password protected. 'It wouldn't take much to crack' it he considered, 'and turn it back on before he returned it to her.' He snagged it off the table, his curiosity getting the better of him. He was surprised when it powered right on, no password or fingerprint lock in place at all, so he plugged in his headphones and scrolled through the main menu.
He opened it up to the last playlist she had been listening to - Her work out music. She had been working out with the punching bag when he'd walked in earlier to the gym. He'd stood off to the side pretending to look over the free weights but in reality he just stood there watching her move in the mirror's reflection. She was easy on the eyes, always had been. She never looked like much, but he knew from personal experience that she could pack a punch and disarm him if necessary in a pinch.
He pushed play on the workout music playlist and loud angry rock blasted his ears. He scrolled through her choices for workout music and was surprised to find a few songs that even he knew, and had on his own workout playlist. She seemed to like to work out to mind numbing and often loud and angry rock.
While the song entitled played he scrolled back to see what other playlists she had on there. He found one called lonely nights and it listed lots of quiet and much softer songs. He recognized a few on here too. One of the assistants in the lab was always playing Taylor Swift's Mine. He personally wasn't a fan, but he figured it was some chick thing. Most of the songs were dreamy and full of loss. He just couldn't quite figure Lupo ever listening to stuff like this.
He scrolled back again to the next playlist and found one called Our Song and he opened it. Only one song was in there, and he was curious who the guy was in the 'Our'. As far as he'd known her she didn't date. He knew that first hand. She was a workaholic if ever there was one. But he'd never noticed or heard anything about her being with another guy. He stamped out a quick tinge of jealousy at the thought. 'Whatever,' he thought annoyed, 'she'd made herself clear about relationships to him a long time ago.' He pushed play and a very familiar song played in his ears. It was A Kings of Leon Song called Use somebody. A favorite of his if he admitted it to himself. Not something he would have pictured her listening to, but he'd begun to wonder lately if he knew her at all. The last strands of the song finished and immediately began to play again and he noted that she had this particular playlist on repeat. Seems she listened to it a lot. He tried to picture who Lupo- Jo, would have sat around listening to this with.
He let the song play again, and he scrolled back to the playlists to see what else she listened to, and his fingers froze over the last playlist. It was titled Zane's Favorites. His eye brows furrowed together and he quickly clicked to open it. The list of the songs was very familiar to him. He scrolled through the list as his mind whirled. Was this some sort of trick? How the hell had she gotten a hold of his music? A much better question was why she had it. He didn't have a particular list of favorite songs, but he pulled up his own ipod from his jeans pocket and opened to his most played song list, and found many of the same song titles there.
He put both of the ipods down and picked up his beer from the trunk again and took a long swig while his mind raced.
Had Lupo gotten some sort of tracker on his ipod? No, he was always sure to keep it protected with a thumbprint lock and it was always with him. Was she doing some sort of weird surveillance on him, trying to get into his mind or something? He considered it, and then rejected it. After she'd been helping him recently, he didn't think that she was looking to pin anything on him. That in itself was weird and he didn't know what to make of it. She was acting nice, and sometimes he even thought that he caught her looking at him with this look. It wasn't often, but he knew that he'd caught her at it once.
He picked up the ipod again gingerly and scrolled back through the playlist. He noticed then that there were some songs that he didn't recognize. He clicked play on one and then the another. They were good he admitted to himself. If he'd heard them anywhere else he would have added them to his music list, but he'd never heard them before. He looked down at the one that was currently playing. It was by a Band called Framing Henley entitled Alone in this Bed. He had a song or two of theirs but he didn't have this one. It was slower than the music he usually favored, the song being more of a romantic, wishful sort of thing. Why would this have been in Lupo's list of his favorites? He went to click on the next song that he didn't recognize and as he pushed play his phone rang.
He took his headphone off and left them dangling on the couch next to the ipod as he stood, quickly walking to where he had left his PDA and looked at the number. It was Lupo. He clicked it on and held the device up to his ear.
"Hello." He said as casually as he could, wondering if Lupo was capable of hearing guilt through the phone.
"Zane?" Jo's voice came through the speaker clearly. "I just got your message. You found my ipod," she asked?
"Yeah," he began uncomfortably, looking away from where her ipod sat, not really knowing how to talk to her. "You, ah, left it behind…at the gym earlier. I happened to see it, and uh…well gave you a call," he stammered, rolling his eyes at the ceiling wondering how stupid he sounded.
"Thank God," Jo breathed relief evident in her voice. "I didn't want to have to replace that too, along with everything else lately."
"Yeah," Zane said. "Rough deal," he added when he couldn't think of anything else.
"Yeah," Jo said a little quieter. "Listen, I'm at Café Diem right now. Could you – um, I mean, would you mind coming down here to return it to me?"
Zane shrugged and ran his fingers through his unkept dark hair. "Uh, yeah. Sure," he said. "I just have to uh…I'll be right over."
"That's great," she said in relief. "Thanks."
"Sure," he finished.
"Ok…, " she added a moment later. "Um, bye." And the line was disconnected.
Zane stared down at the phone for a moment and then put it back on the table. Since when was she so weird when talking to him? Since when was he so weird talking to her?
He walked back over to pick up the ipod from the sofa and held it in his hand. He would have loved some more time to poke around in it a bit. Maybe to figure out why she had all those songs under a playlist of his name. An idea flashed in his head and he went over to his desk, rummaging through the piles of papers and wires until he found the device that he was looking for. He plugged in her ipod and connected it to his own and began to make a copy of everything on it. When he was done he unplugged it and slipped her's into his pocket. He held his own up and scrolled through to see her playlists now listed under his music. He nodded to himself and then headed to the front door to get his keys. Her recent behavior changes, and now this new discovery was starting to set off small alarm bells in his head. Something weird was defiantly going on with Jo Lupo, and he decided that it bore some investigation.
No longer bored he headed back out towards Café Diem to catch up with Jo. Maybe he would do some digging on her when he returned home. See if he could break into her GD file and see what had changed recently. The idea made him grin at the thought of learning more of the inner workings of GD's Head of Security, and whistling the new tune that had gotten stuck in his head; he headed out into the night.
The End
Ok. An insane bit of fluff that I normally don't do. This will fit into other Jo/Zane fic's that I currently have in the hopper but aren't published yet. It's a one shot but below I have listed what I think was in Zane's Favorites on Jo's ipod.
Use Somebody – Kings of Leon
Little Smirk- Theory of a Deadman
Space ship - Puddle of Mudd
Hell yeah -Rev Theory
Up all Night –Hinder
Porn Star Dancing – My Darkest Days
The Downfall of Us All – A Day to Remember
Alone in this Bed – Framing Henley
You and Me- DMB
Somehow, Somewhere, Someway- Kenny Wayne Shepard
Dammit - Blink 182
The Kids Aren't Alright – The Offspring
Until the End – Breaking Benjamin
Becoming the Bull- Atryeu
Out of Control – Hoobastank
This is War – 30 Seconds to Mars
I miss You – Incubus
Little Things – Good Charlotte
Paranoid – Black Sabbath
Save Me – Shinedown
18 days – Saving Abel
My Last breath – Evanesence
Scotty doesn't know - Lustra
