Title: My Soul To Keep
Part One: Lay Down to Sleep
Author: Roguie/ SunSpecOps/ Danae Bowen
Fandom: Eureka
Genre: Romance, Hurt/Comfort
Characters: Jo/Zane, ensemble.
Rating: T… with a strong "ish".
Spoilers: Everything up to I'll Be Seeing You
Summary: When a random experiment goes horribly awry, Jo is caught in the center. When fate altered her life the last time, a small piece of her had died. When her friends conspire to fix what had broken, can her heart handle it a second time around? Entirely AU after IBSU.
Disclaimer: Eureka obviously doesn't belong to me, I just like to borrow the characters and mutate their inner voices. Please don't sue; my house is small, my car is useless and my dogs are pains in the arse, but they're all I have.
A/N: This is going to be a long, drawn out piece of work. Occasionally, I'm inspired by a love story that wants my attention no matter what I'm doing, and when that happens, I write epically long tales. Sometimes I'll update day after day, sometimes it'll be a week between parts, but these stories always take me on an adventure that not even I expect. This particular creation has currently stretched to twenty pages. This part is the first four pages of that story.
A/N2: Reviews inspire my muse; I find Jo and Zane like a drug to her, but if they're the drug, reviews are the devil's whisper putting that needle in her arm. Please don't leave me hanging, and I promise in return that I won't leave you hanging.
~~~E~~~
To say that Jo Lupo was having a bad day would be an understatement. In fact, to say that the day was progressing poorly for not only Jo but as well for any poor soul that had the extreme misfortune to cross her path would be closer to the truth. She was belligerent, pissed, a little terrified and a lot heartbroken; when all those emotions collided in the well trained, well toned body that made up Eureka's ex-deputy, people were right to take cover in the nearest alcove until she'd managed to pull it all back under control.
Demonstrating a moment of good judgement, Fargo chose to ignore the streams of complaints rolling in regarding GD's overzealous chief of security. From minor whines to what would normally be considered abusive treatment, they were one by one compiled in the recycling bin. Jo had enough to deal with without the judgement of a bunch of soft shelled PhDs looking to have their hands held.
The grapevine moved quickly in a small town like Eureka, which meant Fargo was already aware of the reasons behind Jo's testy attitude. Zane had cornered her in Café Diem that morning, before she'd had a chance to even sip her vinspresso. He'd said something offhanded, she'd responded in kind, which had ended in Zane yelping in pain when he'd try to grab her arm and she'd twisted his wrist in ways human bones were never meant to turn, laying him flat on his back in the middle of the café.
She'd stopped at that point, pulling Zane to his feet, whispering something into his ear that no one else was able to hear. The look on his face had been enough, however, to let everyone know whatever she'd said was nothing near the response he'd been hoping for. She'd stormed out of the café, leaving him to brush off his jeans and flip a nonchalant nod to Vince as the man rushed a fresh coffee to go into his hand. Zane had worn out his welcome in the café that morning, and instead chose to make a quick getaway, looking for refuge in his lab at Global Dynamics. Jo, meanwhile, chose to take the morning's activities as an excuse for carving a warpath through GD's hallways. Not even Fargo was oblivious to the rising tension between them, something that would have to be dealt with before becoming explosive.
Which reminded him, he needed to put money down against the newest odds Vincent had projected for Jo and Zane's expected union. Their little stunt in the café that morning had radically reduced the odds, at the same time causing a rush of new dates being chosen, ranging on that very day to no further than a month in the future.
It seemed all of Eureka sat poised on the edge of their seats, waiting for the final steps in a dance that had lasted better than two years. At the rate their tempers were burning and after Jo's unimaginable screw up with her engagement ring, Fargo couldn't see this carrying on any longer than another week. Someone was going to crack and when they did, the flood would be unstoppable.
~~~E~~~
Every nerve in her body was on fire. Thoughts were processing so quickly that she could barely acknowledge them before a new thought assaulted her.
She and Zane had fallen into a routine of verbal sparring in the months past layered over the thinnest veil of friendship she'd ever been forced to lay in place. Since the ring, however, since the kiss, since the moment everything had started imploding, she'd not had the heart or the will to indulge in the tiny scrap of their relationship that she had left.
He wanted answers, answers that she wasn't able to give him for more reasons than just the sanction looming over her head. How could she look him in the eye and explain to him exactly what he had meant to her? How could she honestly describe the relationship they'd shared, through both good times and bad, as he watched her with blue eyes filled with disbelief? Who could blame him anyway? If they could have come clean the first week they'd arrived, maybe, just maybe there'd be something between her and Zane they could salvage, instead, the entire basis of their relationship in the past months had been built on her keeping him out of prison and him sniffing around a mystery he had no business getting so close to.
"Gonna tell me why you had that ring, Lupo?" His words were enough to stop her in her tracks, to end her escape from the café without confrontation.
"No idea what you're talking about, Donovan." She'd tried this tactic before; he didn't always back off, but once in a while, if she was lucky.
"Right. Never happened. Like the kiss that wasn't much of a first kiss?" This time he whispered, lowering his lips to her ear, putting himself in her personal space without any consideration.
The blood rushed to her face instantly and she turned to leave, outright ignoring his blatant button pushing. When his fingers wrapped around her wrist she just didn't think; she moved and he was on his back at her feet before her mind even registered that she'd reacted. His blue eyes were filled with shock, amusement, and a little bit of pain as he wrapped his good hand around his wrist, checking the bones quietly all while grinning up at her like a mad fool.
The stream of words that crossed her lips were unflattering, words that would've made her oldest brother blush, even as she reached a hand down to help pull him to his feet.
"C'mon, JoJo, you can't tell me you don't do that just a little bit on purpose, just to drive me wild."
Against her better judgement she pulled him closer to her, her lips resting so close to his ear that he could hear every single tortured breath that escaped her lungs. "Don't do this, Zane. For once in your life, don't ask the questions you want to, don't push the buttons you're finding, just walk away and don't do this." She paused. "Please."
Having said what she needed to, she spun on her heel and stormed out of the café. Whether he listened to her or not, she'd had to try. One last shot at getting Zane to back off before he got himself wrapped into this so deeply he'd fall with them all. One last chance for him to live the life this timeline had set for him. She didn't turn back to see him rush out of the café, watching her with a grin as she got into her car and drove straight to work. Still, she wasn't surprised when he'd walked purposely past her office this morning and offered her a wink. She was a little sad, maybe, but she wasn't surprised. Zane never did give up easily.
He was confused. She was confused. Throw a broken heart and lost memories into the mix, and they were building a recipe for disaster. Throw a ring into that recipe and watch it explode; unfortunately, the fallout was likely to include friends that shouldn't have been in range, and Jo was having to live with that possibility every, single day.
When her PDA flashed a request that she check in on unauthorized electrical use in a lab in section six, she began the short journey with great relief. Even spending a half an hour talking another egghead down from the precipice of dangerous scientific discovery would be preferable than spending another minute listening to the rampant rumours regarding her own love life. It seemed that more than one of GD's scientists had been present for her and Zane's spat that morning, and more eyes than usual were following her every move, waiting for a repeat, a kiss, or at the very least a little blood.
Having the entire town invested in her relationship with Zane made her distinctly uncomfortable. She was aware of the interest turned her direction since Carter and Allison had made their relationship public; a day or two had passed with tongues wagging and then all eyes turned to her and Zane. Everyone kept telling her that people were only curious because of the pool at Café Diem, a thought that made her shudder in itself. It seemed the entire town remained blissfully unaware of the fact that the added pressure did nothing to pull them together, in fact, it made the decision making process that much more difficult.
She cursed herself as she walked down the long cool hallway. She was better than this. She knew better than this. So many people in her life would be disappointed in her if they knew how she'd been behaving. Emotion should have no affect on the task at hand, that was how missions failed, how people got killed.
She opened the door to the lab she'd been called to and immediately had to duck as lines of electricity arced across the room. Another moment of distraction, proof positive that this thing between her and Zane was nothing but dangerous. She sighed, pausing for a moment to study the situation. She watched as the charge built in a machine set upon the lab's only desk, only to be released seconds later, arching up and over her, ending in a containment unit twenty feet away.
An instant frown marred her features and she glanced down at the tablet she held in her hand. Doctor Temple was conducting research in lucid electricity; a source of power conducted not by wires but by a form of A.I. knowledge built into the generation of the charge, giving it the intrinsical understanding of where it was to end. Doctor Temple, however, failed to submit the proper forms to indicate a test of this magnitude, resulting in power outages throughout GD as the building's matrix attempted to make up for the diverted electrical flow.
"Doctor Temple?"
She forced an edge into her voice, her annoyance with the entire day now focussed on a single person aside from Zane.
"Doctor Temple? I need you to shut down this experiment immediately until proper measures have been taken to sustain and contain any unexpected results. Director Fargo has received several complaints regarding," she glanced back down at the tablet, reading over the top list of whinging that had come through. "Uneven dispersal of electric power. You're compromising experiments that have gone through the proper channels of approval." She paused. "Shut it down."
When no response came from the flashing lab, she frowned and sighed before stepping deeper inside.
"Doctor Temple? Did you hear me?"
Still no response met her query and new surge of electricity arched over her head. Jo growled softly. "For the love of God," she muttered, charging through the room towards the desk generating the blue-white arcs. "For a town full of geniuses, you'd think one scientist out of the lot could push the off button before leaving the room."
Of course, there didn't appear to be anything glaringly obvious as an off switch. No big red button. No arrows pointing towards a sign that read, in case of out of control experiment, call this number for assistance. Not even a back in five, gone for coffee.
Another arc sizzled past and Jo felt her hair begin to stand on end. When the tip of her ponytail began to smoke, however, her eyes narrowed in annoyance. She glanced from the door to the computer and sighed. What's the worst that could happen?
She pressed her finger to the off button on the computer, holding it until the entire system powered down. Instantly, the room grew silent, the hum she hadn't realized had filled the air immediately dying. Nodding in satisfaction, Jo turned to exit the lab, pulling out her tablet to log her actions.
What she didn't expect was the budding blue spark to jump from it's controlled environment to the piece of metal and plastic she held in her hands. At first, her brain registered a stinging sensation in her fingers; a slow burn spread out down the back of both her hands and began crawling up her arms. She could almost swear her blood thickened a hundred times over as it forced it's way through her veins, slowly and with dreadful discomfort. When her heart began to increase time, beating twice and then three times it's normal rate, Jo realized what was happening. Her fingers tightened of their own accord around the tablet as it exuded the power of the lucid shock, the electricity finding a home in her body, and she found herself unable to let go.
The second jolt brought her to her knees, her teeth grinding together and locking her jaw as the wave travelled through her body setting every synapse in her brain on fire at the very same second. Her veins and arteries screamed out in horror as they pulsed and threatened to burst with the force moving through them, her brain began to stutter, sending random impulses to random body parts, all reacting in instant torment.
The third jolt rolled her eyes back in her head, her body seizing violently as wave after wave of blinding agony chased away her consciousness, blessed darkness bringing with it calm, a far distance from the constant ache that filled every bone.
Long after her mind quit registering the sensation, her body continued to jerk sporadically. Only when the electricity to the room was cut from Fargo's office did her spasms reduce to trembles, the offending tablet falling harmlessly to the floor beside her, the blue spark moving from the melted plastic to the metal floor, across the smooth, conductive surface to a grate in the wall. Only when Allison's hands compressed her chest did her heart begin to beat again, the thickened, boiled blood inside her flowing once more through her abused, constricted veins. Only when Zane's lips met her own, forcing air past her closed throat and into her starving lungs did her body begin to re-oxygenate, her brain beginning to fire impulses once more, her body arching once before beginning a spiral of trembles starting at her shoulders and ending with her toes.
Only when they pulled her unconscious form from the laboratory did her tightened muscles relax, allowing her to slip deeper away from the torture that would be a long time fading.
~~~TBC~~~
In the next part:
"How long till she wakes up?"
Allison frowned as she watched Carter pace in front of Jo's bed in the infirmary. "Right now it's not a matter of when, Jack. I hate to say it, but with the amount of electricity that ran through her body we have to consider if she'll wake up."
"Well, yeah, for a normal person, right? I mean, this is Jo." His eyes turned dark as he eyed the woman he thought of as a second daughter; the girl lying in seeming peace . His brow furrowed in quiet pain. "Alli. It's Jo."
Coming Soon.