Rifiuto: Non Mirena
A/N: Written: 2013.- Licia
"What... family secret?" Allison was the first to break the silence.
The younger couple shared a glance, Jo shrugged. After a moment, Zane rubbed a hand over his face; he pulled away and took a seat on the edge of the sofa, next to Allison. His blue gaze darted to Jo, who lowered her own and turned her head. Carter snorted.
"It can't be that bad." Carter spoke up, sipping his coffee. "It's not like one of you has a secret love child somewhere, or is having an affair behind the other's back."
Jo felt Zane tense beside her, and she reached out, squeezing his arm. "That's... not it," Zane whispered, pain barely masked in his voice. "And... it's not funny." He swallowed. "It's actually more serious than that." The two couples shared a glance, as Jo leaned towards him.
"Zane, are you sure? How do we know we can trust them?"
He met her gaze. "Jo, we've known these people for years. They're family. You saw Cate, how she reacted. We can't keep this to ourselves anymore, and we can't keep this from them. Safer in numbers-"
"Yeah, but not if that means sanctions for time travel." She muttered, and he reached up, tugging her chin back to him.
"It'll be okay. Trust me."
She nibbled on her bottom lip. "How can I trust you Zane, when I don't even know you?"
A smile tugged at his lips. "Because I'm still the same Zane you left in your Alternative timeline. And your original. I just... went down a different path, but the feelings are still the same." He kissed her softly.
"Zane? What's so important that you had to ask AIDA for sonic protocols?" Grace asked.
"We have..." The Section Five Head sighed, glancing at Jo. "You know that David Deutsch said that 'a time traveler should end up in a different history than the one he started from', right?" He didn't wait for an answer, instead, pushing himself away from the wall and beginning to pace in that way that was common for him when he was working through a particularly difficult problem. "And that the late Stephen Hawking argued that we should expect each time traveler to experience a single self-consistent history. Meaning that time travelers would actually remain within their own world instead of traveling to a different one, which, if we look at Hawking's argument, then that really isn't time travelling at all."
"That's jumping off of Everett's many-world's interpretation." Henry spoke up, and Zane nodded.
"The what?" Carter asked, and Zane sighed.
"Everett's many-worlds interpretation." He glanced back at Jo, who was listening intently. "The possibility that there are many- infinite, actually- universes, each with their own interpretation of events and historical figures that went down different paths. Like a tree, with many roots and branches." He clarified at Carter's blank stare. Jo snorted softly. Clearly, no matter the universe, Carter was still the same in every one.
"Oh. Okay."
"And that in each universe, which exists within its own small universe, every possible quantum outcome is realized and becomes true." He glanced at Carter, who got a familiar look on his face; one Jo recognized.
"Like the cat in the box." She said, lifting her cup and taking a sip. Carter's brow furrowed deeper.
"What cat?"
"The cat that's either alive or dead. In each universe, the cat is both alive and dead. Or in one is alive and the other dead." She stopped. Zane turned to her, impressed. She shrugged. "Just because I'm not a science genius doesn't mean I don't enjoy science."
He chuckled, shaking his head. "The many-worlds theory came about in the late fifties. It focuses on quantum decoherence," He stopped, listening as Henry explained to Carter exactly what that meant. "and the accepted theory for suggests that if true, then every possible quantum event occurs in mutually exclusive histories unique to each universe. For instance..." He stopped, trying to think of something that wasn't too difficult for Carter and, by extension Jo, to understand. "Look at the Titanic. In our universe, the ship struck the iceberg and sank, taking over a thousand people with her. But in... another universe, the ship struck the iceberg, managed to limp into Halifax and maybe only lose a few people. And yet, in another universe, the ship didn't sink at all."
"Really? Titanic? That's the event you use?" Jo asked, and Zane turned to her.
"It was the only thing I could think of." She held up her hands in surrender. He sighed. "Look, if the time traveler arrives in a different universe that isn't their own, where there is a different history to the one they know, then it's not genuine time travel." He couldn't remember if he'd already said that, and didn't care to go back and ponder it.
"Zane, what are you trying to get at?" Carter asked, stopping the conversations taking place on the sofa between Grace, Henry and Allison. The younger man sighed, glancing at Jo before turning back to the others. He bit his lip.
"What Zane is trying to say, Sheriff Carter, is that Eureka has a time traveler." AIDA's soft voice broke through the voices. Silence instantly fell, as the four shared glances before turning to Zane.
"That's... impossible. Time travel isn't possible-" Jo listened as Henry went off on some spiel about the improbability of being able to travel through time, something she knew to be true. She was literal living proof, having done it twice already. She glanced at Zane, who met her gaze, hands in the pockets of his jeans. He sighed, giving her the barest hint of a smile.
"The only way you could know that, Zane is if-" Allison stopped, and Jo could see the exactly moment it clicked her brain. "is if you were the time traveler."
His blue eyes widened in surprise that she'd come to that conclusion, and he struggled to think of something to say. "Allison... I... you... that's... where did you get-"
Jo glanced at her cup, finishing the last of her coffee before she pushed away from the wall and set the cup on the table. "It's not Zane."
"Well it's not one of us, Jo-" Allison started, as Jo pulled her hair over her shoulder with a sigh.
Carter turned to Jo, suddenly remembering something. "The sticker on your car-"
Finally able to gather his thoughts, Zane spoke up. "Actually-"
"I know, Allison. It's not you, or Carter or Henry or Grace or Zane. It's none of you." She cut Zane off, smiling softly at him. "It's me." She shrugged, hands on her hips. "I'm the time traveler." She turned to Zane, a look of sadness on her features. "And... this isn't my first time jump. I've done it before- but that time was with you four and Fargo." She stopped, biting her lip. "Only that time, it was caused by the Bridge Device, and we were sent back to nineteen-forty-seven, and when we came back we brought Doctor Trevor Grant with us because he managed to configure one of our cellphones to work for him too. And when we came back, the Eureka we came back to was... different." She stopped, eyes misting with tears.
"You two were still married," She nodded to Henry and Grace. "You were still the sheriff, you were the Head of the Medical Department, and you were together. Fargo was the Head of GD," She snorted softly as the other four winced at even the slightest possibility of Fargo being the Director. "And..." She glanced back at Zane. "We weren't together. We hated each other. But... we got to a good place, semi, before I left."
"Left?" Allison asked, confused and worried for her best friend. Her first thought was that Jo was suffering from fever or delirium, or possibly a mental illness that caused hallucinations.
"I left on my walkabout, about the time the Astreaus was set to leave for its mission. I wasn't planning on coming back to Eureka. I went... all over the U.S., and then went up to Canada, visited a friend and former business partner in Vancouver, and.. only my way home, I... something happened, and I ended up back in Eureka, but it's not my Eureka. Not... my Alternate Eureka. And certainly not my original Eureka." She shrugged, turning to Carter. "There you go. The sticker on my car is from two-thousand-twelve because I am from two thousand twelve, not... twenty-twenty-two."
Silence fell, and after a moment, Jo turned to Zane. "Jojo-" She gave him a small smile, moving close and kissing him soundly.
"Thank you, for letting me stay." She pulled away, but he grabbed her hands, suddenly worried.
"Why did you do that? Where are you going?"
"Because I had to. And I'm gonna go for a walk." She grabbed her jacket and pulled it on, slipping her phone into the pocket. Then, she slipped into a pair of shoes and headed for the door stopping at the feel of eyes on her. She turned quickly, to see all three of the girls sitting on the stairs, hidden in the shadows. A finger came up to rest on her lips, and she pulled the door open, stepping out onto the porch. Once it was shut behind her, she walked down the path, making sure she was a good distance away from the house before she pulled out her phone. She scrolled through the contacts, finally coming upon a number she recognized.
She glanced back at the house. She hated what she was about to do, but she knew the rules for time travel. Sanctions and possible experimentation for the traveler and anyone who knew, which was why she needed to make sure she kept Zane and the girls out of it. She wouldn't risk the man she loved- any version of him- and certainly wouldn't risk his children. And, if she were honest with herself, this would be some sort of sick penance for her having gotten away with it the last time. She deserved to be sanctioned, she deserved to be locked up, to be experimented on.
There it is.
Finding the number she was looking for, she dialed, waiting for the person on the other end to pick up, barely registering that it was exceedingly early in the morning on the other coast. A soft sigh of annoyance escaped her as she got voicemail.
"Hi, General Mansfield, it's Jo Donovan. If you could give me a call back when you got this message, please. I've got some information you'll be interested in." She paused, biting her thumb nail. "It's important."
As she ended the call, she began to feel infinitely better, as though a stone had been removed from her heart. She could handle it, and, if anything, she would be getting what she deserved for having gotten away with it the first time. Glancing back at the house, she stuck her hands in her pockets, and took off on her walk, head down. Yes, Zane would be pissed as Hell, but she was doing this to keep him and the girls safe. This had been weighing her down since she arrived, and now, she was going to fix it as best she could. It was only right, that she get what she rightfully deserve.
And this... this nice, beautiful, perfect life, with the man she loved... she didn't deserve this. She had never deserved it. She knew that, and accepted it, and someday, Zane would too.