Crazy He Calls Me*

Alison had known that he was hallucinating. But when Jo had said, as delicately as she could, that Zane seemed to be mistaking her for Alison, Alison had choked out a laugh and firmly said, "No. That's not what's happening."

All right, so it wasn't the most important thing. It definitely wasn't what Jo should be worrying about. They needed to find the DED, and they needed to find it now. Losing a Doomsday weapon was by far the most critical problem facing Eureka at the moment. So why couldn't Jo let go of trying to understand what Donovan had been talking about?

Zane, she corrected herself grumpily. He wasn't Donovan, he was Zane: a different person. One with different memories, different experiences, a different outlook on life. But what the hell had he meant?

With Carter close behind her, she entered the sheriff's office. Andy had called them: Zane wanted to talk.

"I've been thinking about how things played out." Zane was pacing the cell. "It's Grant."

"What would Dr. Grant have to gain by being involved?" Andy asked carefully.

"He was alone in the control room when the containment field failed. And you heard him. He was way too worried about the DED and how it would be used. I don't know how he got my passcode, but that has to be how he did it."

Jo glanced at Carter. He was looking worried, but said to Andy, "Andy, get him down here."

"You got it, boss. Dialing," Andy responded with his usual cheer.

Grant. Jo had been uneasy about Grant from the day she'd met him. Sure, some of it was the time travel: he hadn't belonged in Eureka of the present day and she'd seen that. But there'd been more to it. One of her father's friends was a retired general. Retirement was hard on generals. When you were used to saying 'jump' and the only possible response was 'how high?', losing your authority was difficult. Grant had the same flavor to him: he wanted power, he wanted to be in the center of things, he wanted to know that when he talked, people listened. Being nothing more than a historian, a precarious hanger-on in a town that he'd helped create? Yeah, he wouldn't have liked that.

"I'm afraid he's not answering," Andy said.

"We should check the archives," Jo said, her eyes on Donovan. "See if anything in his file gives us a clue as to who he might know now."

Carter glanced at her, and she shrugged.

"Yeah, she knows," Zane said. His expression when he looked at Jo was unreadable, at least to her. She scowled at him.

"She – what?" Carter glanced from Zane to Jo and back again.

"I didn't tell her. She figured it out on her own. And we haven't talked about it." Zane scowled back at Jo.

"You know?" Carter asked Jo. "Why didn't you say something?"

She turned her glare onto him. "Why didn't you?"

"Well, because—" he started, sounding exasperated, and then stopped.

Jo nodded. "Exactly." He hadn't told her because it was too dangerous. She hadn't told him for the same reason. "It's not important, anyway. We need to find the DED. Grant's records are in my office. Let's go look at them."

Carter nodded.

Jo turned back to Zane. "When this is all over? We are going to talk. You are going to tell me what all that was about yesterday."

"Awesome." Zane rolled his eyes, and turned away. Jo glared at his back. This whole thing wasn't her fault. Maybe it wasn't his fault, either. But she couldn't help the way she felt and the way she felt was really, really pissed at him.

Damn, but jail was boring.

He was so sick of being trapped here.

It would have taken him twenty-two minutes to fry the lock with some wire and a power source. He'd done the math. Or, if he could get Andy to give him a smart phone, six point two minutes to open the lock electronically. Or, if he could get Andy to pause close enough to the door to subvert the AI's programming, twenty-two seconds to get Andy to open the door.

Instead, he sat on the bunk and stared at his snapshot of himself and Jo. She was so frickin' beautiful. Her hair curled when she didn't straighten it. He wondered how many people in Eureka knew that. She spent forty-five minutes a day, every day, turning the natural curls into the straight ponytail that most people knew.

Why the hell did he have to love her? Why couldn't he just stop?

"Good news, Mr. Donovan," Andy's cheerful voice interrupted his bleak thoughts.

"Yeah?" Zane looked up.

"They've found the DED and concluded that you weren't involved in its theft."

"Rocket scientists, all of them," Zane grunted. Like it was a surprise that he wasn't involved. Of course he wasn't. But Andy was opening the door to the cell so what the hell. He shouldn't complain. At least he was getting out.

"Sorry for the inconvenience, Mr. Donovan. But the evidence was overwhelming."

"Yeah, well, you can relax, I'm not going to sue you." Zane didn't know where he should go. He wanted to see Jo. He wanted to have it out with her. He didn't know anymore what she knew or didn't know, but it was past time for them to just have the fight that they should have had two months ago.

He slipped his photo into his back pocket just as Zoe entered the sheriff's office.

"Zane!" she said exuberantly. "Hey! I just heard the good news!"

He tried to smile at her. What was he going to do about her? She was a nice kid. He really didn't want to hurt her feelings. He knew exactly how miserable it was to care about someone who didn't even notice, but still, he didn't want to lead her on, and not just because Carter would kill him.

She crossed the office to him, and before he could even think of how to signal a no, she was wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him down to her. Shit.

"Don't you dare!"

Saved by the bell.

Or in this case, an irate security chief.

His lips an inch from Zoe's, Zane pulled back in relief, his hands dropping to his sides.

Zoe let him go reluctantly, turning to face Jo with an irritated look. "I'm not a child, Jo. Do you mind?"

"Tell her," Jo snapped at him.

Tell her? Tell her what?

"Tell her what you told me yesterday," Jo demanded.

Oh, what a bitch. Really? Bad enough that he'd shared his innermost feelings with a woman who didn't give a damn, now she wanted him to share them with the world? He glared at her, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

"Tell me what?" Zoe asked, looking from Jo to him and back again. He looked at her confused expression and sighed. Fine. Better she know now, anyway.

"What Ms. Lupo," he drawled, throwing all the sarcasm he could into the name, "wants you to know is that I'm in love with her. Have been for years." He turned his glare back to Jo. "And much though I hate it, I can't figure out how to stop."

Zoe took a step backwards, away from him, looking stunned. But not quite as stunned as Jo looked. Her mouth opened, her face paled, and she blinked. Once, twice, a third time.

Zoe looked from one to another, her startled expression rapidly changing to one that looked a lot more like suppressed amusement. Jo's expression hadn't changed at all, though. "You and –, " Zoe started. "Um. Okay. Well…ah, yeah. So, maybe I'll just…um…I'll just leave you two together." Backing away from Zane, she started for the door, passing Jo with a whispered, "Oh, we are so going to talk!"

Jo didn't move. Her phone started ringing but she made no move to answer it.

Zane rocked back on his heels. Okay, this felt damn awkward. What the hell had she thought he'd been talking about the day before?

"You – I thought – but – what about Alison?" Jo finally said.

Alison? What about Alison? What did she have to do with anything?

"Alison?" Zane asked.

"I thought you and Alison were…" Jo started. "I…"

Zane shook his head in disbelief. "Alison?" he repeated. "Are you insane?"

Jo's phone stopped ringing.

"So in the other – in your – you didn't propose to Alison?" Jo asked. It was as if she couldn't quite let go of the idea.

Zane sighed. This sucked just as bad as he'd thought it would. Although where she'd gotten this weird notion about him and Alison…

"No," he said firmly. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the photograph of the two of them together. Taking two steps closer to her, he held the photo out. She looked at it and if anything, went paler. Her eyes, when she looked up at him, were dark with an expression he couldn't read.

Her phone started ringing again, and impatiently she pulled it out and looked at the message. "Fargo," she sighed. "Damn it, I have to go deal with the DED."

He shrugged. She'd caught her lower lip in her teeth, the way she did when she was worried, and he wanted to touch her, to run his finger across her mouth, and then to kiss her, but she was still looking at the photograph of the two of them, as if she couldn't quite believe it.

"Meet me," she said abruptly. "Later," and then she pressed her lips together as if she couldn't quite believe she'd said that.

"Okay," he answered slowly. "Where?"

She looked up at him, and she was almost smiling. "Figure it out."

* While I often enjoy being obscure, no one on the planet will get this one, so, fyi, "I'll Be Seeing You" is the name of a Billie Holiday song, and so is "Crazy He Calls Me".