I know, I havent updated my other Eureka story. But this one popped into my head while rewatching the Ex-Files on Hulu, for the fourth time. What can i say, hallucination!Zane was sexy! But anyway, i was thinking about what's happening in our timeline, while they are stuck in the new timeline. I didnt like the idea of the other Jo, Carter, Allison, Fargo and Henry taking the places our Jo, Carter, Allison, Fargo and Henry. So instead, i have them missing from our timeline. its a Zane-based fic. I dont mean to be bashing Fargo, but i dont think our Zane likes him much better than the new Zane does.
Zane was pissed. Actually, pissed was putting it lightly. He couldn't believe she would do this to him. First, she had frozen and not answered when he proposed, then she just ran away. Zane had never thought Jo would be a coward and run away from town just because he'd proposed and she wasn't ready. She was the one who'd gotten mad at him for not saying "I love you" and not being ready to take their relationship further. So when he was finally ready, and he'd gotten up the courage to ask her to marry him, she'd frozen and then left. Yeah, he had every right to be pissed.
After he'd stormed from the Sheriffs Office, he'd gone to his lab, trying to work on his latest project. When he couldn't focus on that, he went for a walk and ended up at Café Diem. Zane thought about going in for a moment, but then he figured that Jo might have been in there, having a coffee or something, so he decided against it. Zane kept walking and found himself in front of his old apartment. He'd moved into Jo's house several months ago, a short time after their "make-up dinner". He knew that so far, no one had moved in, so he decided to go in. During those first few months dating Jo, after he'd started spending the night at her place because it was bigger and she didn't have a neighbor on the other side of the wall complaining when they made too much noise, Zane had come here for some alone time. They both respected the fact that, occasionally, they needed time away from each other. Zane spent a few hours just sitting around, trying to clear his mind. After he'd felt calm enough to confront Jo, he'd called her cell phone first. No answer. He called the house. No answer. He called the office. Again, no answer. So he went looking for her, determined that she could not ignore him after this mornings events.
He started at the office, where he'd left her after the failed marriage proposal. He was somewhat shocked to see all of his things still in the cell, untouched. He thought she would have certainly torn everything down. But still, she wasn't here, and nothing looked like it had been moved in the entire place since this morning. Odd. Next he went to look for her at Cafe Diem. She wasn't there either. He looked at the gym, the shooting range and even his own lab, thinking maybe she had gone there to wait for him, to maybe apologize. She wasn't at any of those places. He swung by Café Diem on his way home to grab something to eat. After ordering his food, he figured that if anyone in this town would know where Jo was, it would be the town gossip, Vincent. Unfortunately, he hadn't seen here since she came by that morning for coffee. And that led Zane to now, as he stood in the middle of their living room, pissed.
The food he'd picked up had long since gone cold, sitting on the dinning room table. He'd already gone around the house, and everything seemed to be in the place it should be. So it seemed, that Jo had left town and left everything behind, not just him. And that fact had just proved to make him even madder. Did she think that she could just forget about her life here? Forget everything they had meant to each other? He decided for one last try to find her. He called Carter's house. The two were close; the entire town knew Carter thought of Jo as family. Maybe she'd gone to stay with him to get away from everything that happened that morning. Unfortunately Carter didn't answer, Sarah did. Zane asked her if she'd seen Jo and Sarah had told him that she hadn't. She also hadn't seen Carter since he'd left for work that morning. Now things were getting strange. Not only was Jo missing but so was Sheriff Carter. Zane started to wonder who else was missing, and the more he thought about it, he hadn't seen Dr. Blake at GD when he was there, nor had he seen Fargo. He hadn't seen them as he'd walked through the exhibits in town for Founders Day, either. He'd also seen the antique car that Henry had been working on, but hadn't seen Henry himself. He'd also heard from Vincent that Henry hadn't shown up to give his speech, though Zane had to admit, he'd kind of stopped listening after he heard that Vincent hadn't seen Jo.
Zane went to the kitchen and pulled a notebook out of a drawer and started writing down a rough timeline of the last time people were seen in town. Jo was last seen in the office, Carter had been over heard saying that he was going for a run before setting up security for the Founders Day exhibits. Fargo had seemed to mysteriously disappear after running off to change clothes after spilling coffee on himself. Henry had been seen talking to Grace, the lady who organized Founders Day and whose car he was fixing, then he slid under the car to fix something and no one actually saw him come out. And Dr. Blake had gone home to leave her children with the nanny, and according to him, she had never returned from work. Four of the most influential and powerful people in Eureka were missing, and Fargo. Now Zane was really worried.
He sat at the table, shocked. He had no idea what to do, had no idea who to call. The last person he wanted to call was General Mansfield; Zane figured the man would probably blame him for this. Not that Zane could fault the man for that; he did have a criminal record after all. But that didn't mean that everything that went wrong in town was his fault, there were other untrustworthy people in town. Take Fargo's girlfriend for example. Zane could call the old Sheriff, he had never met the man, but maybe the guy could help figure this out. Nah. No, instead Zane figured he'd call the only other person he knew to ever hold the title of Sheriff, the robot Andy.
"This is Andy speaking." Answered the ever cheery and rather creepy voice.
"Hey, Andy, it's Zane Donovan from Eureka." Zane replied.
"Ah, Mr. Donovan, hello. I hope that everything is going well in town. I am rather enjoying my vacation." The robot replied.
"Actually, its not, we're having a slight issue here in town. Carter, Jo, Dr. Blake and Henry Deacon are all missing. Oh, and Fargo, too. They all went missing this morning and no one has any idea where they went." Zane told him, leaving out the thing about the failed proposal.
"Oh dear. That's not good, who is running the town?"
"Well, no one right now, they've only been gone for less than a day, but we're gonna need someone to run things if we can't find them soon. I need you to get back here to help with the investigation. You're the best person I can think of for the job." Zane said, hoping to convince the AI to return to the town.
"Well I am honored that you would think that Mr. Donovan. I shall return as soon as possible. However, my programming is not designed for me to lead the entire town. I am merely programmed for law enforcement." Andy replied.
"Well, right now, I'll take any help I can get." Zane said, hanging up the phone. He sighed and buried his head in his hands. This was not going to be fun. He knew that he had one more person to call, and this wasn't someone he looked forward to talking to about this problem in town. Zoë Carter.
Zane dialed the number for her cell; it rang a few minutes before a sleepy Zoë answered. Zane silently cursed himself for forgetting the time difference between here and Boston.
"Hello?" He heard Zoë ask again.
"Hey Zoë, its Zane." He said, trying not to sound too anxious.
"Hey. Why you calling so late? Is something wrong?" She asked, her voice sounding concerned.
"I….I don't know how to tell you this, but…. You're dad's missing." He told her, and there was a long stretch of quiet. He was about to ask if she was still there when he heard her speak again.
"I'm catching the next flight home."