Scene 9

"Okay, that was just weird. What the hell is going on, Lupo? What are you doing out here?"

Jo opened her mouth to try and answer—it wasn't going to be a quick response—and then paused, suddenly realizing what was truly strange about this, stranger even than being attacked by a wolf or two. "I'll tell you," she said, "As soon as you tell me. How the hell did you find me? I'm in the middle of nowhere and it's barely sunrise."

"Ah, just lucky?" Zane tried to look innocent.

"No. Try again."

Zane sighed. He pulled out his phone and tapped the touch screen, and then holding the phone up as if he was making a call, said, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good." Turning the phone, he handed it to Jo.

She looked at the touch screen. A little blinking dot said Lupo below it in script, with numbers next to it. "It looks better when we're closer to town," said Zane. "And it looks great in GD. Look." He finger swiped the touch screen, and it zoomed out, revealing itself to be a map of Eureka. More dots appeared, bearing labels for Carter, Fargo, Andy, and other GD employee names, with a heavy emphasis on the names of her GD security team.

"What is this?" asked Jo.

"It's my marauder's map app," Zane replied. "I hacked the GPS database a while ago and made a tracking app that uses the signals from your phones to let me know where you are. I call in, use the password, and the system downloads your location. Well, the location of your phone, technically, but you security-conscious types always have your phones on you. The numbers are our coordinates."

Jo's mouth dropped open. Closing it with a snap, Jo said, "I am so arresting you for this. That's completely illegal!"

He grinned at her. "Aw, come on, Jo-jo. I told you, now you get to tell me. What's going on and what was up with that wolf?"

Jo glanced over at the brown wolf, collapsed on its side just a few feet away. "It's a really, crazy story, and I'm not sure I believe it myself," she started to say, but then the wolf started to twitch. Its legs began to jerk spasmodically and its back arched, before it went into a full-blown convulsion.

"Oh, no, no, no, no, no," Jo rushed to the wolf's side and fell to her knees beside it. She looked up at Zane, "We've got to get him to a vet. As quickly as possible."

"The road's that way," Zane gestured. "It's not too far, but I'm on my bike. Where's your car?"

"Too far away," Jo replied. She was crouching over the wolf, with no idea what to do as it spasmed again and again, saliva foaming on its muzzle, its back arching so hard it looked as if it would break. "What are those coordinates?" She pulled out her phone.

"Come on, Carter, pick up, pick up," she chanted, as his phone rang.

"Jo?" Carter's voice was wide-awake.

"I've got him, Carter, but I need a vet. You've got to get a vet here, as quickly as possible, " Jo said frantically.

"Where? Where are you?"

Zane held his phone out so that Jo could see the map and the numbers under her name. She rattled them off to Carter.

"It's right off Bohr Road," Zane added. "We can try to get him down to the road."

"Did you hear that?" Jo asked.

"Was that Zane?" Carter asked.

"Never mind that, Carter. We need a vet, right now. He's having convulsions and—Carter, this is bad. Get here as quickly as you can." Jo clicked off and shoved the phone into her jeans pocket. The convulsions were easing off but the wolf's eyes were closed and his breathing was shallow and light.

Jo slid her arms under the wolf's neck and hindquarters and tried to pick him up. She could almost get him off the ground, but he was big and unwieldy, and she'd never manage to carry him for long.

"Here," Zane had her jacket and was laying it flat on the ground, stretching it out to its farthest extent. "Roll him onto this, and we can carry him together." Jo rolled and pushed and slid, until finally she had the wolf entirely on the jacket. She grabbed one side, Zane grabbed the other, and together they lifted the wolf off the ground and began lurching toward the road.

They struggled through the woods, Jo trying to watch her footing and watch the wolf at the same time. If it regained consciousness and attacked, they'd be in big trouble: her tranq gun was back where they'd started and there was no way she was pulling out her ankle gun and actually shooting this wolf. She still wasn't sure it was Kevin but it wasn't a chance she was willing to take. This was bad enough. She was reminded of the threat she'd made to her security team the night before: she was going to have to put herself on section 5 duty if the wolf was hurt. Oh, no. Had it stopped breathing?

"Is it breathing?" she demanded, out of breath and gasping from the strain of carrying it.

"Ah, can't say," said Zane, sounding equally breathless.

Jo glanced at him. He wasn't watching the wolf. She glanced down and then rolled her eyes. When they'd picked up the wolf, they'd each taken a long side of the coat, so there wasn't a lot of space between them. They were separated by only the width of the wolf, not its length. And she, of course, had never put her sweater back on after taking it off earlier.

"Enjoying the view?" she asked poisonously.

"You have no idea how much," Zane answered honestly. "Between the cold and the exertion and the black lace—honestly, the black lace is just killer, but that bead of sweat that's rolling down from your neck is driving me insane. I don't think I've ever seen anything so hot. I just want to lick it off you."

Jo felt a wave of heat rush up her body and she flushed. "Oh, God. You—you are so infuriating."

"Admit it, Lupo. You want me to lick it off almost as much as I want to lick it," Zane's voice had dropped to a rough whisper, part breathlessness and part pure lust.

"Focus," Jo snapped at him, mostly because yes, if she let herself admit the truth, she'd drop the damn wolf and jump Zane where he stood. "Is the wolf breathing?"

He groaned and tried to pay attention. "I can't tell."

"Oh, God," Jo said and this time it was a prayer instead of a curse. "We need to move faster."

"We're almost there," Zane was watching the wolf now, his blue eyes worried. "What happens if it dies?"

"It can't die," Jo snapped. "It just—it can't."

Finally, they broke out of the trees and into the clearer light of the road. They staggered up the slight hill to the side of the road and lowered their burden. Jo immediately pulled out her phone. Standing, she paced as she called Carter and waited for him to pick up.

Zane bent over the wolf. He stroked its fur, feeling for a heartbeat. Frowning down at it, he looked thoughtful, and then shrugged. Using his sleeve, he wiped the wolf's muzzle clean of the saliva foam from the seizure, and then tilted the wolf's head back. Holding the mouth closed, he forced a long breath of air into its nose. He pulled back, waited three seconds, and tried it again. With his breath, the chest of the wolf rose and fell, but it still didn't seem to be breathing on its own. Zane kept going, breathing steadily for the wolf.

They could hear a siren in the distance growing louder until at last Carter's jeep came around the closest curve in the road, and came screeching to a halt. Dr. Glenn, a small blond woman in her mid-40s, tumbled out the side door, almost before the jeep had come to a complete stop, and ran to the wolf.

"Keep going," she said to Zane, as she began working on the wolf. "He's not breathing?"

"No," said Zane, between breaths. "But I got a heartbeat a minute ago, so he's not gone yet."

"What happened?" Dr. Glenn asked as she ran her scanner over the wolf. "I'm not finding any injuries."

"It was a tranquilizing dart from a Manning X42," Jo answered. She was hovering above them anxiously, Carter next to her.

"I don't care about the type of gun. What kind of dart was it?" Dr. Glenn was listening to the wolf's lungs now, and shaking her head.

"It's in the pocket of the jacket."

Dr. Glenn slipped her hand under the wolf and into the pocket of Jo's jacket, pulling out the extra darts. "Etorphine? But the dosage is okay for a wolf, I don't know why that would cause this," she frowned.

"What if—what if it wasn't really a wolf?" asked Carter.

Dr. Glenn looked up at him. Zane stopped breathing for the wolf as he too looked up curiously.

"Keep breathing," ordered Dr. Glenn, looking back at Zane. "You're what's keeping him alive right now."

Turning back to Carter, she said, "'I'm not sure what you mean. Etorphine wouldn't be my first choice for any canine—it's really pretty strong stuff, better for bears. But the dosage on this dart should be fine. As long as you only shot him once?" she looked at Jo, and Jo nodded.

"What if you used it on a human being, though?" Carter persisted.

"Well, it's fatal for human beings. It causes respiratory failure." She looked back at the wolf. "And that is what's happening here." She reached for her bag.

Jo paled and turned away, Carter looked as if he'd been hit in the stomach. "Is there an antidote?" he asked urgently.

Dr. Glenn nodded, as she pulled a hypodermic out of her kit. "Diprenorphine. I'm giving it to him immediately, but if that's the problem, he's going to return to consciousness almost right away." She injected the wolf, and then pulled back one eyelid to check it.

"Yes," she said, "that's going to do it. Are we letting him loose or are you trying to capture him for some reason? Because if you want to keep him, you should get him into the back of the jeep quickly. He's going to be awake and moving within a couple minutes."

"Can I stop breathing for him now?" Zane asked, a little plaintively.

"Yes," nodded Dr. Glenn. "And good job on that. How did you know that it would work? Not too many people are ready to give mouth-to-mouth to a wild animal."

Zane shrugged. "Seemed like the thing to do."

"Can you help me lift him?" asked Carter. Together, Carter and Zane carried the wolf around to the back of the jeep and loaded him in. Closing the door, Carter turned to Zane. "I don't suppose you know what you've done, really, but…"

Zane rolled his eyes. "Whatever it is, I am not responsible. I may have let a few monkeys out of cages, but setting predators free is not my thing. "

Carter laughed and shook his head. "Wrong way around this time." Reaching out, he clasped Zane's arm and hand in both of his. "I owe you one. A huge one. And I won't forget."

Dr. Glenn was already climbing back into the jeep, turned around in the front seat so that she could watch the wolf's return to consciousness. "Hurry, Sheriff Carter, " she called."We need to get him into a safer place. He could hurt himself back there if he gets too agitated."

Carter nodded. He turned to Jo and enveloped her in a hug. "Thank you," he whispered to her hair. "Thank you."

"I nearly killed him, Carter," Her face was pale and sweat-dampened, and the horror hadn't left her. "He could have died."

"But he didn't," Carter said firmly. "Now we just need to get him back to GD and figure out how this happened and how to fix it."

She nodded weakly.

"You should get some rest first, though. Go home and sleep for a couple hours, if you like," he said, glancing at Zane. "And, um, nice bra, by the way."

With a smirk, he headed for the door of his car, and a minute later, he was making a u-turn on the road and heading back to GD, lights flashing.

"Wow," Zane watched the car go. "I hate to tell you this, Lupo, but I think the sheriff just gave us permission to go back to your place and, uh, engage in some adult recreation.*

"The sheriff just saw me in my underwear," Jo said. "That really kills the mood."

"I can get it started it again," Zane offered, a wicked glint in his eye.

"No, you can't," Jo said firmly. "I'm going to go get my stuff and then I'm going back to GD." She headed for the woods, and then turned back to Zane. "Um, but could I get a ride?"

Zane grinned at her. "Yep."

*This reference is borrowed from an outtake on the Season 2 DVD, which—if you are Jo/Zane obsessed—is a nicely hot ten seconds, worth trying to find the DVD.