Rifiuto: Non Mirena

A/N: Written: 2013.- Licia

Two Weeks Later

By the two week mark, Jo still hadn't fully accepted that she was stuck in this... alternate timeline to her Alternate timeline.

Things got a little easier; work was a piece of cake, saving the town- and by extension, the world- from scientific catastrophe at the hands of egghead scientists was routine and something she knew well, regardless of the timeline. She'd taken Zane's cues and had slowly started learning how to parent the girls, and while Annaleigh and Eleanora- still young enough to understand that Jo's time here was most likely temporary, but old enough to understand that they needed to play the part of the loving family to the rest of the town to keep Jo's secret- accepted Jo as a temporary mother-figure until their real mother returned, Caterina was understandably putting up a fight.

She refused to call Jo 'Mom' at home- something neither Jo nor Zane had enforced, but the younger girls had started doing so out of normal habit, and the difference between Caterina and her sisters was noticeable- and barely acknowledged her in public, except when she had to. She took the advice Jo gave with sneers and snarky, backhanded comments, often defaulting to Zane in attempt to ice Jo out; to most of the town, it was a teenager not getting her way and trying to play favorites with her parents; only the Donovans, Jo and AIDA knew the truth. Jo took it all in stride, remembering the grief she had given her dad at that same age. And given that the change in the timeline had been a major upheaval in the entire family's lives, Jo didn't blame the girl for reacting as she was. She just wished she'd cool it with the backhanded comments.

Zane was working on figuring out what exactly had brought Jo to this timeline, and how to get her back to the other one, but there was only so much the Section Five Head could do without raising suspicion. And so he mainly worked on it when he was home, locking himself in the study off the living room after dinner and staying until late if he'd figured something out, or looking over it on their days off if he hadn't. It really depended on the physics and the science.

Jo often came downstairs in the early morning hours to find him sitting at the island, poring over the work of Novikov and Deutsch, and any other physicist that had ever looked at time travel even offhandedly. It had become a puzzle Zane couldn't finish, and for a man who loved puzzles, it was beginning to drive him crazy. Not even necessarily for the possibility that he could send Jo back to her time and get his wife back- at that point, he wasn't even sure he wanted his wife back, honestly, especially if his suspicions were correct- but more for the implications to the his field they would bring.

Science was Zane's first love; Jo knew that. He'd all but told her in the original timeline that she was his second love. No one could replace science for Zane, not his girlfriend, not his children, not even his wife. It was why he didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't do drugs or anything really, that messed with his brain. And in the original timeline, it had irked Jo to no end that she had come second to a field of study, especially when he'd done so little to prove they actually fit. And in the Alternate... in the alternate time, yes, science had been Zane's love, but he'd also made time for her. They'd started to find a semi-healthy balance between work and whatever they had been-

But here? In this time?

Science was still Zane's first love, but that love had waned greatly over the years; it not longer had the hold over him it had in the original timeline. And there was no semi-balance between work and life outside GD. Here, from what Jo could figure out, Zane had a healthy love of science; enough that he enjoyed his work as Head of Section Five, enjoyed the challenge of a new experiment, but he also knew not to bring it home. It was healthy because it stayed at GD. And while that love of science had waned over the years, his love for Jo- and later one, for their girls- had grown.

He put them first before work; when Tesla had called three days earlier, saying that Ela had suffered second degree burns from a project during her Advanced Chemistry class, Zane had come and gotten her, before they'd rushed over to Tesla. The burns hadn't been bad, but the fact that Ela had gotten hurt had set Zane's fatherly hackles raising. They'd signed the girl out of school and taken her to GD's infirmary, where Allison had checked her out at Zane's request. Yes, it was obvious that science had taken a backseat to fatherhood for Zane. Seeing Zane with the girls made Jo wonder if, had they actually gotten engaged and then married, the original Zane would be as attentive, loving and caring to their children. Somehow, Jo highly doubted it.

And then there was Carter.

In the original timeline, he'd been her superior, her boss, her partner, hell, even her best friend. In the Alternate timeline, though they no longer worked in the same office, they were still on the same level, of sorts, both being in positions of power and security. But in this new, alternate, different timeline, Jo had arrived in Eureka after Carter; she had never been his deputy, hell, she didn't even know if they were friends. Clearly, she was good friends with Allison- probably because they both worked at GD, and so saw each other constantly- enough that she was still 'Aunt Jo' to Jenna- but Carter? She truly had no idea. And it pained her that she had lost her friendship with the sheriff.

So it was one late evening sometime in the two weeks when Jo was startled awake by something outside. "... going on?" She peeled herself off Zane's chest and buried her face under the cool pillow she started with every night, and then discarded in favor of Zane's warmth and heartbeat. For his part, Zane hadn't objected; if he had, she'd know. This timeline, the Alternate timeline or the original, passive-aggressive was passive-aggressive, and Zane would always, no matter how old or how long they'd known each other, fall into that category. It was just one of the many things that drove her nuts about him.

He grunted, shifting onto his side and grabbing her around the waist. With a squeak, she felt herself being tugged back into his arms, as he buried his face in her neck. At first, Jo had wondered if her sharing the same bed with Zane as her counterpart had was a good idea; it briefly crossed her mind that she was the other woman- even if that 'other woman' was another version of this timeline's original- but after Zane had told her about the high probability that her counterpart in this timeline had been carrying on an affair with this timeline's Evan Cross, well, guilt and disgust at what she was doing were low on the totem pole of what she should be feeling. Besides, the spark that ignited between them from the moment she arrived in this timeline and met him in Carter's cell, had been building over the last two weeks and was getting harder to ignore. They had always had that spark, from the moment they'd met, and always would, no matter the timeline.

The banging continued, and Jo kicked him in an effort to get him to investigate as she returned her head beneath the pillow. "Zane... door..."

He groaned, tightening his arms around her waist. "AIDA... check the door..." He buried his face in her shoulder, and after several moments, sleep seemed to return to both of them as silence filled the room.

"Sheriff Carter is at the door, Zane."

"What... important... time of night..." Jo's muffled voice came out from beneath the pillow.

"He has Caterina with him, Jo."

"That's-" Any thoughts of sleep were abandoned as Jo lifted the pillow away from her face. Zane pushed himself onto his elbow, meeting her gaze as she leaned back to look at him. They shared a glance. "Did she say-"

"- Caterina?" Zane finished at the same time; it clicked in both their brains at exactly the same moment, and they scurried out of bed, hurrying downstairs. Yanking the door open, they found Carter standing on the front step, holding Cate by the arm, in the rain. The teenager looked sullen, and Carter annoyed. "Caterina." The girl glanced at Jo before averting her gaze.

"Andy caught her at the edge of town, heading out of town," The bite in his voice was laced with annoyance at being awoken from bed at one in the morning to catch his friends' runaway daughter, but he hadn't wanted Andy returning her; besides, he wanted to talk to Jo and Zane about something that had been going on in the last couple weeks, and figured this would be the perfect in to do so. "with this." He held up her backpack.

The pair sighed, and Zane pushed the door open. "Thank you for bringing her back, Carter." The sheriff nodded, gently pushing the teenager into the house with the backpack before turning to go; both Jo and Zane looked exhausted, and what he needed to speak with them about could wait until the morning. They all needed their sleep. Jo reached for Caterina, but the girl pulled away, glaring at her, and so instead, reached for the backpack. "Caterina Elisabeth, what were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that I'm not going to spend another moment in this house as long as she's here!" Cate snapped; Carter stopped midway down the path at her words.

"Cate." Jo's whisper was soft; her gaze darted to Carter, who turned back. "You ran off. You can't do that-"

"Don't act like you're my mother! You're not my mom!"

"Hey, don't speak to your mother like that." Carter spoke up, returning to the door; the girl turned to glare at him, and in that moment, she looked so much like Jo it was scary. "She's just doing her job as your mother-"

"Cate. Please."

"You don't get it, do you, Carter?" The girl turned to the sheriff. She was angry, at this whole situation- at her dad for so easily accepting this... this impostor from another timeline into their home, into their lives, at her sisters for agreeing to the ruse, at Jo herself for showing up and taking her mother's place... at her mother, for going on that stupid trip up to Vancouver, for leaving them to continue her affair with Evan Cross, even when her dad was so wonderful, so sweet, so in love with her... that she had the gall, the very nerve, to walk away for a month to 'find herself', when she was really just going up to Vancouver to fall into Cross's bed again, as she'd been doing for years, while her husband had turned a blind eye. And then this... this alternate Jo had shown up, and she was acting the way a mother should act, the way a wife should act, and it made her angry, that a version of her mother could be what her own mother couldn't. So okay, Cate was more than angry, she was furious. Out and out, absolutely, blackout raging furious.

Carter sighed. He checked his watch. It was well past one thirty in the morning. He should be home in bed with Allie, not listening to an irate teenager rant about how angry she was at being caught for running away. But he knew the girl needed to talk, to vent, and so played along, with the hope she'd rant quickly enough to burn herself out so he could go home and everyone involved could go back to bed. "What don't I get, Cate?"

"She's not my mom!" Jo buried her face in her hands with a groan, and Zane took a deep breath. He was trying not to lose his temper, but with each word that left his daughter's mouth, it was getting harder to keep in check. She was going to put them all in danger, simply because she was angry that her mother was gone and she was taking it out on Jo. "She's not even from this timeline! She's a... a time traveler-"

The sheriff glanced at the couple before turning back to the girl, but before he could speak, Jo interrupted him. "Just ignore her Carter. She's upset because she got caught running away, though why she felt the need to run away-"

"I left so I could get away from you! From the fact that you're here and my mom's not and you're acting like her! And you!" She turned to Zane. "You're falling for her! You don't even care that Mama's gone! I think you're happy she's gone! She's gone and this one's here to take her place like some sort of... fucked up cloned trophy wife-"

"Caterina!" Jo and Zane's mutual shout perked Carter's attention. He watched in silence as Jo found her voice, snapping at the girl, who, despite her brilliance, also possessed not just her father's, but her mother's stubbornness- a rare, dangerous combination- and didn't know when to back down, and so she kept going. For everything Jo said, Cate bit back, giving as good she got, until Carter was pretty sure the argument could be heard all the way to New York. After several minutes, he stepped forward, getting between the pair when Cate reached out for Jo.

"All right, that's enough, both of you!" He glanced around for Zane, who had moved to sit on the stairs, head in his hands. The poor man looked as though he'd been enduring the arguing for weeks. "You cool it!" He glanced at Jo, huffed and crossed her arms. "And you, haven't you ever heard the phrase, 'respect your elders'?" Cate backed up, crossing her arms and glaring at Jo. The sheriff sighed. "Now, for all intents and purposes, and on the hope that we'll all be able to get some sleep, let's say that Caterina's right."

Jo's head snapped up, dark eyes going wide. "I'm sorry, what-"

"You can't be serious, Carter." He glanced towards Zane, who'd spoken at the same time as his wife. Ge held up a hand, stopping them both.

"Just... just humor me, please." The young scientist let out a huff of annoyance and threw up his hands, getting up and going into the kitchen. "There are a couple things I-"

"Fine, AIDA, door." Without a word, the front door shut and locked. The sheriff watched as Zane grabbed a coffee mug from a cupboard; he met Carter's gaze. "What? you're here, you might as well know the truth." He glanced at Jo as she hurried to him. "And Carter? I suggest waking Allison, Henry and Grace also. They'll want to hear this too."

"Sure." The sheriff nodded, turning to leave the house as AIDA unlocked and opened the door. As he left, he heard,

"As for you, young lady, you're grounded, for the next fifty years."