Did she love him? Jo had known the answer once, more than once, but she no longer did. Yes, no, yes again?
But she knew that the heart-stopping moment of seeing him unconscious in the infirmary would linger in her memory long after the day ended. As would the pain in Zoe's voice when she said that she still didn't understand. How could she, after all? Jo didn't understand herself.
"How ya' feeling?" Zane had already been checked out by one of the med techs, so Jo knew that he was fine, but it seemed like the question to ask. It was better than asking "Are you going to break my heart again?" or "Can we make it work?" or "Do we belong together?" anyway.
He grinned from his perch on the edge of the infirmary cot. "Like I had a really nice nap. But I hear you saved the day again. Something about shooting Alison? And setting off the network security?"
Jo shrugged, and folded her arms across her chest, fingers holding her upper arms protectively. "I stunned Alison. As for the computer, I tried to think of what you'd do if you were awake, and realized that a failed intrusion would be just as good, maybe even better, than a successful one. It shut down the flow of data. But I was locked in my own cell half the time. Zoe's the one who really pulled it off."
He glanced over to where Carter was walking Zoe to the door. "I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to warn you that Pilar spilled the beans."
Jo glanced in that direction, too. Carter's arm was wrapped around Zoe, their heads together. Damn it, Carter had warned her that Zoe was involved. She should have paid more attention. She should have been a better friend. At the very least, she should have been honest and not let Zoe find out the way she did. "Yeah, it was . . . unexpected. I should have been ready for it, but I wasn't thinking." She looked back at him, and sighed.
"Pilar said she was mad. How bad was it?" asked Zane, tone more curious than concerned.
"Pretty bad." Jo bit her lip. "I hurt her and I didn't mean to."
"Hey, if anyone hurt her, it was me," Zane said quickly. "You didn't do anything wrong. And I didn't – we weren't – she just had a crush. We didn't do anything. I never even kissed her, not really." He slid off the bed, standing in front of her, and reached to link his fingers with hers.
Jo put her hand up, fingers spread wide, to stop him, shaking her head. "No, it was a betrayal," she corrected him. "That's what she called it, and she was right. I shouldn't have gone behind her back."
"Jo, come on." Zane looked around the crowded infirmary, and dropped his voice to a near whisper. "You're being way too hard on yourself. On us. If Zoe knew the whole story, she'd understand."
"But she doesn't, and she can't," Jo said quietly back, looking sad.
"Are you going to let this mess us up, too?" Zane took a step closer to her, gray eyes intent. "Is this just another excuse not to give us a chance?"
"I – what?" Jo looked startled. "No. No, I wanted to. . . " She let the words trail off and shifted uncertainly, looking away from Zane for a moment. Is this what she wanted? Was she ready for this?
"What then?" he asked insistently.
Her hand was still up, still holding him off, until with a sigh, she let it come to rest on his chest. She could feel his heart beating under her fingers, and the warmth of his skin, and she was close enough that she could smell the eucalyptus of his soap.
"I wanted to ask if you wanted to go out to dinner," she said, eyes on the light dusting of hair in the v of his t-shirt.
"Dinner?" he asked, sounding startled.
"Yeah."
"Like the food-you-eat-in-the-evening-dinner?"
She shrugged, feeling stupid, still not looking at him. "Yes."
"Like a real-meal-dinner?"
"Yes. Dinner," she snapped, finally looking at his face. "I know you know what it is."
He was smiling at her, the jerk. "Like a date-dinner?"
She rolled her eyes. "Yes."
"Are you asking me on a date, Lupo?"
She sighed. "Yes, I am. And you have two seconds to say yes before I taze your ass for being an annoyingly idiotic narcissistic jackass who . . ."
"Yes, yes, yes," Zane said hastily. His smile had moved from being a smirk to being a full-fledged grin as he brought his hand up to cover hers, and bent his head. "Does this mean I get to kiss you in public now, too?"
Jo's answer was a half-breath of laughter as she slid her hand up and curved it around the nape of his neck, pulling his mouth toward hers.
Did she love him? She didn't know. But Zoe had been right.
Jo needed to find out what she felt for Zane, what they could have together in this timeline.
And the only way to do that was to take the chance, and see what happened.
A/N: I know I keep saying this, but I *am* working on Reckless. At the moment, though, I'm so totally sad that it keeps flowing into the story and I refuse to let the story head in that direction.
Meanwhile, I'm working on some original fiction – okay, yeah, my hero is named Zane and my heroine is named Akira and it takes place in a small, quirky, weird town, with a company with impressive security whose initials are GD – but Syfy can't cancel it arbitrarily and unreasonably, so ha to them.
If you'd like to read it, there's a link to my fictionpress account in my profile and I'd love feedback. I'm not a big fan of writing description which is one of the things that I really like about writing fanfiction (getting to skip all that description writing, I mean) so especially any comments on whether there's enough description or not would be nice.