In the control room, Henry had turned off the iso chamber monitor so Zane and Jo couldn't see or hear them, but they could all see what was going on inside their chamber.
"They're not talking! It's been an hour and they're not talking!" Fargo had his chin on the control table, his eyes focused on the monitor.
Jo was sitting on one side of the room with her back to the wall. She was hugging her knees and her head was in between them.
Zane was pacing angrily on the other side of the room.
"This used to be easier…" sighed Carter.
"Well apparently throwing them together into a room is not enough anymore" Allison, seated beside him, was rubbing his back, hoping to ease his frustration.
Grace, because she knew these two for a shorter time compared to the others, had to ask "Do they now hate each other that much?"
Carter was confident with his answer, albeit exasperated "Nahh. They're just stupid and stubborn and miserable"
"Hey, don't say that about Jo and Zane! They've had it bad as it is." A voice from the back piped in.
Carter turned to the other presence in the room "And don't I know it. You only get to watch it happen. We live it. And it's gotten painful and almost unbearable. We're just as desperate for that happier ending as you are."
"Isn't that what this intervention is for?" Henry addressed the group. "We all love Jo and Zane and they need our help." He turned to the pair on the monitor. "So now that we've established they are not going to do this on their own, any suggestions on how to give them a push?"
"Zane can be a clueless nitwit sometimes. We need to spell it out for him. " said beaglesplus7
''Do we do a sweet Zane or spicy Zane?" asked Sydnew
"Can't he be both?" purplepotatopig asked excitedly.
"Can we have Zane take his shirt off?" hatondog asked.
"Is that really necessary?" Fargo asked.
"Yes!" everyone on that side of the room replied.
OrionM42 pointed out "It always gets a reaction from Jo. And obviously from us" she said with a grin.
"Or we can give Jo a shower scene, or have her strut around in her lingerie. Zane looooves scenes like that…" said Sara60691
The men groaned "We'd rather not. Can we go for something less…racy?" said Henry
"You want action? We can put Jo in danger, say create a wormhole that sucks her in? Maybe Zane will panic and declare undying love?" suggested CopperMinted
"I think Zane needs to be the one sucked in a wormhole…" grumbled Sydnew.
"I can put Zane in a coma if you want?" volunteered AllyrienDM
"How about firing up the FTL and sending Zane to Titan?" said hatondog
"As long as you bring him back. How will they talk if he's out there and she's here? Unless you plan to send Jo after him?" pointed out purplepotatopig.
"I'd rather Jo tazer Zane for being such an ass. Has everyone forgotten he burned down her house? All those in favor?" said ZeroGain
A few hands went up.
"What if we just have Zane ambush Jo with a kiss? She can never resist that." suggested beaglesplus7
"He hardly seems to be in the mood for kissing right now." Grace points out
"Well, we can re-create the sonic barrage. Maybe it'll work backwards this time. A sonic barrage that gets them to kiss rather than as the result of a kiss?" suggested Pchefbeth
"What sonic barrage?" asked Carter
We all looked at each other and gave them a sample of the "sonic barrage"*
"You just had to ask, huh Jack?" said Henry with his hands over his ears
"Well, did it work?" Carter shouted.
Henry looked at the monitor and shook his head.
messersmontana raises a hand "What if we throw in Taggart to make Zane jealous?"
And adds "Or bring back Zoe to make Jo jealous?"
"Hey, that's my daughter you're talking about!" Carter protested.
"Sorry Sheriff"
"May I suggest we start them off on a romantic dinner, then maybe the ballet and end the night with candles?" suggests OrionM42
"You must be the fluff fairy" Fargo sits up and smiles at her.
"I thought so…" then Fargo asks sheepishly "Would you mind sprinkling some fluff dust my way?"
"Don't worry Fargo. I'm working on a storyline for you and your redheads" purplepotatopig said with a wink at Fargo
"What if we bring in his mom? Zane would listen to her" suggested hatondog
"Or Jo's brothers?" added bittie752
"What if we send in their future children?" suggested Sydnew
"Aww, but that usually makes Zane melt – seeing his future kids with Jo" said purplepotatopig
"Exactly!"
"Or I could turn Zane into a werewolf?" said Sydnew
"What if we play them a song like Reckless?" said Sara60691
"Let's go fantasy! Let them think they're the lead characters in a romantic fairytale!" put in JustWriter2
"Or we can give them dreams - you know, the kind of dreams they won't admit to having about each other?" said BithaBlu with a sly grin
Carter was astounded "Where do you guys come up with all of these ideas? And these usually end happily for the two?"
Heads nodded.
Allison, ever the voice of reason, spoke up. "Much as I would be interested to pursue any of those ideas, why don't we start with the simplest one first and see how that goes."
Carter was confused. "What's simple?"
Allison answered back with a smile "Feed them dialogue. We brought them here to talk didn't we? Hopefully that starts the ball rolling and let's see from there?"
Grace seemed agreeable to the idea "Hmm. That's good. But how do we suggest the words to them. We need to develop some kind of neuro-suggestion device in order to feed the dialogue to their cerebral cortex without them realizing we're giving them thought starters"
That started a flurry of activity at the back of the room
"No prob. We'll write one up. One neuro-suggestion gizmo coming right up."
"Do you want to give it a name?"
"How about NIALL – Neural Implied…
"Never mind, start typing…"
BithaBlu clapped her hands together in delight "This is gonna be gooood. I'm making popcorn!"
* in case you're not familiar, please read "shipped apart"
author's note : this is a shout-out to my fellow eureka fanfic writers, i hope you don't mind the liberties i took including you in this chapter. to those i did not get to mention by name, please don't fret. please know that i have read practically all the eureka stories i could get my hands on in this site and i've enjoyed all of them. the ones i used here were chosen for storyline purposes primarily.