Pictures of you Chapter 2

By Pchefbeth

Has anyone else noticed that Zane, in either reality is SOO much easier to write than Jo? My next and final chapter...at least I'm pretty sure it is. The Astraeus didn't vanish in this segment, and Allison didn't go with them.

He couldn't sleep again. It was almost getting ridiculous. He had taken to working extra shifts each day in order to exhaust himself enough so that this wouldn't happen, but night after night he found himself wide awake and staring at the ceiling of his small room. He didn't understand why he didn't feel content. His days were filled with some of the best science imaginable. If he wasn't assisting with the processing of new data that field teams were collecting, he was out participating in an EVA and admiring the Rings of Saturn up close. But when it came time to sleep he found that he couldn't.

It was almost ironic he thought as he looked from wall to wall. Six years previously he'd been stuck in a cell no larger than this one, where the window had bars. Now he voluntarily was in another room more than a billion light years, literally and figuratively away from that life, but the feeling of satisfaction was hollow still.

He lay on the bunk, absently staring at the ceiling for another moment before he uttered a curse, and turning over, reached under his pillow and withdrew a set of photographs. He stared at the image on top as he lay back down, reliving the memory as he did each time he looked at it. It was one of the best days that he could remember. He had been granted a pardon for his past transgressions; the paperwork had been signed and sealed, all with the help of the woman he now looked at. She'd helped him in ways he couldn't even begin to explain, the pardon only a small part of it. Her trust in him had allowed him to really begin to fit into the town for the first time; and it had led him here, following in the footsteps of a dream that he had long given up.

He remembered after he had signed the papers the elation that he had felt as he walked freely into the glass cell in her office, where he was often a frequent visitor. As he'd reminisced not so fondly about all the times that she had locked him inside it, he'd looked back to where she stood at the entrance to the cell, a sad smile on her face. He remembered that he'd teased her suggesting that he might leave; he couldn't help it, it was second nature to him, but he thought that he'd given away the joke when he couldn't stop staring at her mouth. Goodbye, he thought ironically to himself now. It was the furthest thing from what he wanted to say to her.

Instead of calling him on his bluff as he'd expected, she'd kissed him. More than kissed him he thought, smiling as he remembered all too well the feeling of her hands and her lips as she'd anxiously helped him take off his shirt before removing her own clothing. That was the image that he'd chosen to print and take with him when he went into the security footage to make sure that there were two small but crucial glitches in the security system's camera software from that day. As he had located them, and relived them once more, just to make sure that he hadn't missed anything, he'd taken two pictures from the record; one from each time. He'd wanted to remember just how she'd looked, clinging tightly to him as she kissed him, as if she hadn't wanted to let him go. He'd initially teased her hoping that he would get her to admit that she wanted him to stay, but he hadn't been about to dissuade her from any other reaction that she'd had. In the photo her hands were curled in his hair, pulling him closer as she kissed him. His shirt lay forgotten on the floor where she'd thrown it moments before, and his own hands had been busy pulling her shirt out of the waistband of her pants as he too had been anxious to get his hands on her. He thought the moment captured exactly what he had loved best about that day.

The second picture slipped out from behind the first, and as he caught a glimpse his smile faded almost completely from his face. This one was always harder to look at. Not an hour before it had been taken he'd heard that she'd been in an accident at the AGI lab, one that from all reports given had been a very close call. Apparently Jo had refused to leave as they realized the danger, and instead she'd stayed as she attempted to shut off the valve from which poisonous gases had vented. It hadn't worked and they had been saved by the rapidly growing plants as they reacted to the nitrates in the atmosphere. They alone had shielded her and the others until help arrived. He hadn't liked hearing that. She was often in danger, they both were. Eureka wasn't exactly an easy place to work, but somehow that day it had been different. He'd been anxious, edgy even, until he could see for himself that she was alright. A reaction that had not sat well with him. He'd been forced to wait while she conducted some sort of interview with an inspector from the DOD before he could finally get her alone. He remembered how the sensation in his chest had lifted when he'd seen her, standing holding that ridiculous white dress as she hummed to herself. He'd had to take an extra moment to calm himself before he spoke.

He could barely remember what he'd said to her, but he could remember how strongly he had felt; needing to make sure that she was alright. He'd kept his hands in his pockets at first because he couldn't remember wanting to reach out to touch her that badly before. All he could think was that when he'd kissed her that morning and joked about saying goodbye that it could have been so close to the real thing.

He stared hard at the image that he'd chosen to keep, it was the moment when he had finally kissed her and realized that just kissing her wasn't going to be enough. He'd all but pushed her back onto her desk, crushing his mouth to hers, needing to prove to himself that she was alive.

Afterwards as he'd watched her straighten up her office, he recalled his previous conversations with Fargo about dessert. The advice that he'd given had always been what had worked for him. No strings attached, as little emotion as possible, but as he watched her walk away as if it didn't mean anything he realized that his own advice wasn't working in this situation. He had the same feeling that he did now, and he absently rubbed his hand over her chest where the ache still lingered. He closed his eyes and let the photograph fall forgotten onto his chest as he tried once again to fall asleep. He still wasn't entirely sure what the feeling was, but the one thing he knew for certain was that it definitely wasn't hunger.

Good God -they had better get these two back together quickly as season five starts or I'm going to need a shrink!