Everything is Illuminated

It was just after dawn on a Saturday morning, the day Josefina Lupo deliberately barreled into Zane's home and life after a week of pointed avoidance, followed by an evening encounter even more perplexing than when he'd last gotten under her skin in Carter's office the week before. In spite of all his theorizing, posturing, and, yes, occasional soul-searching, he found himself surprisingly unprepared. Besides which, it was barely five am and even the most brilliant of former felons have their limitations. He blinked, and blinked again.

"What – Lupo, what are you doing here?" He belatedly noticed her hand on his shoulder – had she actually shaken him awake? Throughout the week she had been avoiding any and all physical contact as if his skin might actually scald her, and last night she'd burned both hot and cold until he'd all but given up on making sense of her behavior. What he did know was that last night, the both of them had been like addicts desperate for their next hit – until they had both fled. With that thought, it was as if her hand was burning her mark into his shoulder. With effort, he rallied his very best smirk. "I was starting to think you'd never see it my way, Jo-Jo." Then a thought occurred to his gradually awakening mind.

"Wait, how did you get in here?" She'd have to know the trick to the lock – nobody knew the trick to the lock, aside from him. Once upon a time, long before her promotion to Head of Security, it had driven a certain Deputy Lupo crazy to know he'd turned his home into something of an impenetrable fortress. That made yet another piece of evidence pointing to the not only improbable but supposedly impossible theory he'd been constructing. Lupo ignored him, stood up and paced, and the loss of her hand was an unexpected disappointment. He eyed her and once more catalogued the irregularities, something that had lately become a new but necessary habit for handling her. She was frazzled, he concluded. Her usually impeccably tamed hair – her one vanity, he had long suspected – was in disarray. Strands hung loose, framing her face. She wasn't in her business clothes, which was unusual – generally she took the time to look official before she had him tossed into jail. She whirled back toward him, running a hand over her already untamed locks, and he saw with a narrowing of his eyes that she was worrying her lower lip between her teeth, which, he thought immediately, was a pity, as he could think of a number of better uses –

"I need your help, Zane." She finally said, slumping against the wall by his bed and locking her eyes on him, and he lost all thoughts of pulling her onto said bed and helping her reconsider her egregious treatment of such excellent lips when he got a good look at her face.

There was no preparing for a look like this in Lupo's eyes: that was damn sure. In the last few weeks he'd seen anger, depression, maybe even resignation, and other things he hadn't dared put words to yet that never failed to shoot an unexpected warmth through his frame – but this was desperation, verging on the manic. Her already dark brown eyes were framed by darkened skin, bruised by a lack of sleep, and the whites of her eyes had distinctly bloodshot overtones to them.

"Lupo," he asked, incredulity coloring his voice. "have you been crying?" It might not be featured in the town bylaws, exactly – which after the first few bouts with Lupo he'd set to memory – but the one constant he'd known throughout his time in Eureka was that nothing fazed Josefina Lupo. She glanced away and sighed,

"It doesn't matter. Look, you've been… pestering me for weeks. You have questions and I have the answers, at least some of them, and it's clearly annoying you almost as much as it's annoying me. This is what you wanted, isn't it? I can give you those answers. But I'll need your help. This is serious, Zane. Don't you think we would have told you already if it wasn't?"

He didn't, actually, or at least he wouldn't have, before, but… things had changed. She gazed at him steadily now, and he thought he saw the taint of defeat join the desperation in her eyes. Zane knit his brows together, deep in thought, and ran through lightning-fast analyses as the clock ticked. Lupo, having said her piece, was leaning with her head against the wall, looking very much as if the wall was all that kept her standing. With a flash of alarm, he recognized this was almost certainly his only chance to get what he wanted – needed, even – to hear from Lupo. Making up his mind, he rolled over and stretched, folding his arms behind his head and smirking. Immediately Lupo's eyes flickered to his bare chest and skittered away.

"Well then, Lupo, we haven't got all day. I didn't expect to have this conversation in my boxers, but I suppose duty calls." He patted a spot on the bed next to him. "Don't you want to sit down?" He suggested, nonchalant, and watched in amusement as she gritted her teeth. Then to his surprise Lupo crossed the room and perched on the end of the bed. The far end, of the far side - but this was perhaps the first concession she'd given of her own accord. It was also probably a mistake. She studied her hands and sighed, and her body drooped as if all her remaining energy had gone in that same whoosh of breath.

"What do you know about the founding of Eureka?" she said, suddenly; and this was not exactly the direction in which Zane had expected conversation to turn. It was his turn to study her warily,

"It had something to do with Einstein?" he suggested. She half-smiled.

"He founded Eureka, in 1947, with Dr. Trevor Grant." She responded, watching him as if expecting something, and Zane was beginning to feel a little ill.

"I don't suppose this Trevor Grant would be related to a certain Dr. Charles Grant, until very recently of Eureka?"

"One and the same," Lupo said slowly, holding his gaze steadily, and he was drawn in by the raw honesty in her eyes until he was jolted abruptly back to the present when he processed the words.

"You actually – "he blurted, but she cut him off.

"Don't!" she hissed. "Don't even sayit!" He raised his eyebrows, but took her point. This was Eureka, after all. You never knew who might be listening. Any other day and he might be the one eavesdropping, for that matter.

"Why, Jo-Jo, have you been bugging my bedroom?" He teased, but his normally dancing blue eyes were dark and serious.

"Zane," she said, exasperated, but he cut her off as his spinning mind was starting to see exactly where this was going, and if he was right – it didn't look pretty.

"The Wells protocol," he said slowly, and started to feel real fear. What they'd done, it – it was serious. This was dangerous and the punishment was very, very irreversible. And he suddenly understood Jo's bizarre behavior, the strange dichotomy between her desire for him – which, he was sure, was entirely real – and her reluctance to act upon it, which only a week ago had been the prevailing force. It was no wonder she'd fled last night. But then why – ?

"Yes," she whispered, and glanced at the door. "But Zane, you cannot tell anyone, do you understand, they would have us sanctioned – maybe you too – and that would be the last anyone would see of us – "

"My turn, Jo-Jo, and this time you're going to answer my questions, since you seem to want my help so badly." He was bluffing, of course, but the one thing Zane knew he could count on was that even now, changed as she was, Lupo was never quite sure he could be trusted. The glare Lupo leveled on him could have melted glaciers, but he was well enough accustomed to that in this – what was it, altered timeline? Really? – that he was very nearly immune.

"So," he said, quirking an eyebrow. "Just you, Carter, Allison, Fargo, and Henry, right? And that Grant guy was some kind of hanger-on?"

"Yes," she muttered, and it was clear she had resigned herself to the inevitable. She was looking away from him, towards the open doorway as if she were heartily wishing to be somewhere, anywhere else. Zane suspected that was, in fact, exactly what she was thinking, so he contrived for something requiring more than a monosyllable in response.

"I knew there was something up with that guy!" he crowed.

"Yeah, yeah, you're a god amongst mortals, I get the message." She snarked back at him.

"How'd you manage it?" He leaned forward, forgetting about the deeper implications for the moment and savoring the scientific puzzle. Time travel, of all things. It was supposed to be completely impossible! He'd known it had to be something off the charts, even for Eureka, but this - "It must have been on Founder's Day, while I was locked in a jail cell for your convenience." He theorized. "That's when you started to go crazy on me." Lupo snorted.

"You know well enough that I didn't lock you in there, so forgive me if I'm not wracked with guilt, Zane. And nothing about you has ever been convenient." He couldn't decide whether that was a blow or a boost to his pride, but at least he had spurred her into an explanation. "There was this old device the town had brought out for Founder's Day – called a bridge device," she continued, "and Kevin started fiddling with it. It interfaced with our cell phones somehow – don't give me that face, Zane, you know I'm not even close to being a scientist, ask Henry if you need to know so badly." She scolded him.

"What face?" Zane asked, puzzled. Lupo rolled her eyes.

"Your classic 'I'm going to need every last scientific detail, please,' face, I've been seeing it for years, and for the thousandth time you really ought to know better – " she fell silent, suddenly, and he realized that this was an argument she had made so many times she knew it nearly word for word. Suddenly he was at a loss for words, himself, but it did raise the question she had no doubt been hoping to avoid, and he found himself blurting it out –

"How long?" he asked, and she looked like a deer caught in headlights. Unlike most deer, Lupo tried to dodge.

"What do you mean, how long?"

"You know exactly what I mean, Jo." He bit back. "How long were we together?" Lupo looked down at her hands, which had been worrying and twisting the quilt. She looked as strained as the quilt as she let it go and smoothed it out, and something inside him wrenched unexpectedly. But he needed to know.

"About a year and a half, give or take," she muttered, tracing the pattern on the quilt, and he found he was inching toward her.

"Well? Which is it? Give or take?" he asked, more gently but the force, the impetus to know remained. She sighed.

"Give, I suppose." And he eyed her.

"So more like two years, then." He predicted. She bit her lip and didn't respond, and he found himself looking away from her, this time. Two years was – a long time in a relationship, especially for him. He wasn't sure he liked the idea that there were two years of time that he'd lost – never had – couldn't remember – and it was strangely disappointing to think he'd lost out on two years of Lupo. Two years of chemistry like what they'd had in the sheriff's office – it was almost impossible to imagine, and he couldn't help wondering what had gone wrong, that he'd missed that. He looked at Lupo – Jo, because suddenly it was hard to imagine her any other way - and cleared his throat.

"So, I – I assume there are other differences and the universe does not, in fact, revolve around… us." Jo looked unsurprised by the question.

"Fargo was never head of GD. Allison was, actually. Fargo was mostly just a pain in the neck."

Zane interrupted, "Well that certainly explains the sudden turn around."

" – Kevin was autistic – " Zane merely raised his eyebrows.

" – Henry and Grace barely even knew each other, I was still Carter's deputy – "

"Huh."

" – and Carter and Tess had already split up when it happened."

"Huh," he repeated, and she looked up at him, annoyed by his sudden non-responsiveness, and she realized that in her distraction he'd managed to inch closer and closer. He took one last scoot closer and suddenly, despite her best efforts, she'd found herself in the danger zone. Zane could see the recognition in her eyes and found himself biting back an ill-timed smirk. He'd freely admit that a week ago, kissing her had been an impulse, for which the payoff had been substantial. He'd already known something was up, had been given a good idea what it was – he wasn't dumb, how could he possibly miss it, between her rant and an engagement ring identical in every way to his grandmother's? But his next move would require a little more finesse. It was a little bit like learning to hack all over again, but back then the risks hadn't felt nearly as high. One wrong move now could be the end of it – whatever 'it' between them was. That, he suspected, might be worse than the prison terms he'd once been promised. Not to mention – knowing Jo Lupo – one wrong move could just as easily be the end of him.

Jo swallowed deeply and opened her mouth to speak, but Zane thought it better not to give her the chance, and took the opening she had unwittingly created. He wanted to hear that breathy little sigh again, the one he'd heard in the café the night before. In one fell swoop, he was cradling the back of her head and his mouth was on hers and they were both lost in each other. A week ago, kissing Josefina Lupo had been a revelation, and watching her melt into his touch last night had been – heady, to say the least. Now, kissing her was more like being enveloped in living flame, and he wanted to explore and give and take until he knew every contour of every molecule in her body, down to her very marrow. In an instant he felt fiercely jealous of himself, which was certainly the most counterintuitive and ludicrous thought he had ever entertained but he desperately needed to know her now in the same way she clearly knew him, because even as he was delving into his first real exploration, her hands were wandering with frightening perception. In seconds the kiss had deepened and Zane was now on his back, as Jo had forgotten all about keeping her distance and was instead clinging to him with his sheets tangled between them, running her hands wherever she could reach, lost in sensations she'd truly feared she might never feel again – her hands alternating between his chest, peppered with hair, and his smooth, bare shoulders, trying to eliminate every inch between them.

And then Jo remembered what it was she still had to tell him, and froze. Zane pulled back, running his hand through her now hopelessly tousled hair one last time but refusing to move away from such a prime location, instead using his hand to trace patterns on her back as they reoriented themselves, breathing heavily. They were both on the bed now, both horizontal, which was precisely what Jo had belatedly realized she risked by storming into his room, and though it was still early in Eureka, time had by no means stopped.

"Now, was that so awful?" Zane murmured with the hint of a smile, which faded as he studied her face. If anything, it was more desperate than it had been an hour ago, and he saw a hint of actual tears in her eyes. "Jo?" She turned on her back, forcing him to pull his arm out from under her.

"I haven't told you everything," she said quietly, staring at the ceiling as if it held the secrets to the universe. At this rate, Zane suspected, the ceiling might actually be more forthcoming. And then Jo finally came out and said it, and his heart skipped a beat.

"Zane, I'm pregnant."

A/N: If any of you watch Warehouse 13 (which I know is probably the case), know that I mean nothing in particular by calling it the Wells protocol, other than that the McFly protocol has been taken elsewhere. ;) I feel obligated to point out that the time travel rules of thumb in Warehouse 13 completely contradict the time travel rules of Eureka, which after the crossover episode happened became annoying; however, the general argument is probably something along the line of there is a distinction between a Warehouse 13 artifact and a scientifically based time traveling device. This is also annoying given that Wells' machine was an artifact and therefore the doctrine doesn't really fit… but on the other hand I suppose you could look at it as H.G. Wells attempted to change time, which made her very dangerous, and the DOD doesn't want anyone attempting to change time again and doesn't much care how they go about trying it.

I know this may not be exactly the direction you expected things to go – at least not right away – but have faith. There is method to this madness. There is… Plot.