Chapter Three
Control: Part III

"Zane," she repeated slowly. "Don't shoot. It's me, Jo. I know this is going to sound crazy but—"

"We're in a total immersion simulation program? I know." He seemed casual enough hitting the nail on the head like that. Jo knew better though.

She cocked her head to the side, glancing around briefly for escape routes and weak spots in case it was necessary. "Uh, yeah."

"Mmhmm, and you're a part of it." He pulled the hammer back on the gun without taking his eyes off of her. Again, the coldness unnerved her. She needed to think of something quick because he was totally serious about this.

"No! Wait!" she shouted holding her other arm out. "The Carter that's out cold on the ground right now, yes, he's part of it. But I'm not." A nervous laugh bubbled out as her mind raced with things she might say that could possibly convince him that she wasn't the enemy. "It's me, babe. You know me."

Zane shook his head. "Call me 'babe' again and you're going to be missing a few ones and zeroes. You're not my Jo and I don't want to know you."

A part of Jo melted a little at his possessive declaration. Nevertheless, she was still plenty aware that there was a gun pointed at her head.

Her frustration was starting to rise. "Look, my body is back at Henry's garage. He had to jack me into the program using a backdoor and a wireless connection. I replaced the Jo Lupo NPC—she doesn't exist in here anymore. There's only me and if you shoot me, I'm gone. The real Jo Lupo—your Jo—is gone. You need to drop the gun so I can get all of you the hell out of here. I imagine it's a lot to ask but you've got to trust me."

"That's not going to happen," he said shaking his head emphatically. "I get it. The program knew there was something up and changed tactics. Nice."

It concerned Jo that Zane's arm held steady. He hadn't shot her, which she was glad for, but he had no intention of believing a word she said. Maybe she was going to have to wound him to get him out of the way. The thought made her sick to her stomach but better wounded and out of the picture than all of them dead.

Jo practically growled in frustration. "Zane, I don't have time for this! We found the first place they were holding you but we didn't get there in time to rescue you." She tried to keep the hurt out of her voice. She needed to focus. "But you couldn't have been taken far. Henry and Carter are waiting for me to cause a thermal overload that will create a heat spike big enough to project the mainframe's IR signature. We find that spike and we find you."

She could tell that the wheels were turning in his head. He got that squinty, serious look whenever he was thinking big thoughts. Maybe she was starting to get somewhere with him.

"Henry, Carter and my team are ready to trace that signature. They're just waiting on me."

Zane didn't drop his gun but she noticed that he had taken his finger off the trigger. "What did you have in mind?" He was testing her. But she had the answers. Sort of.

"We gotta blow up the Astraeus." His eyebrows shot up in surprise obviously not expecting a plan of that magnitude. "Go big or go home," she added with a slight smile.

Zane rolled his eyes. "That's a nice ruse but how the hell are you gonna do that? That ship was made to take a pounding. And I know you like big guns, sweetheart, but I don't think you've got anything close enough to put a dent in that thing." The snark in his voice was grating. Jo reminded herself that she was lucky to still be able to hear that voice. And she was damn lucky that she might actually convince him that she was not part of the program so they could get on to more important things.

"You can shove your sweetheart. You know I hate that." He smirked and she tried hard not to match it with one of her own. "Henry says we need a, uh, it's…" It was on the tip of her tongue. There was so much to remember in those few minutes before she was jacked in. Zane continued to look unimpressed. "It needs to be constructed but I know I can't do it. I'll need help. It's called an, oh what is it…ionic—"

"Resonator!" he responded. That would do it." Yet he still trained his eyes on her suspiciously. "But just because that makes sense doesn't mean I think you're on the level. I already know about you so I'm expendable. This must be a trap of some kind."

Now it was Jo's turn to roll her eyes. "What do I need to do to convince you?"

Zane paused, no doubt pondering her question. As the moments stretched on she was scared that the answer would be that nothing she said would make a difference to him. That thought made her incredibly sad. She cared about him and she knew he cared about her once. It was devastating to see what one month in this simulation had destroyed between them. It made her feel as if they were back to square one; she was the cold security chief out to get him and he was the shell of a man she once loved.

He opened his mouth and then just as quickly closed it, having reconsidered his request. Shaking his head, he tried again. "Did you tell anyone how I proposed to you? I mean the other me?"

Jo was not expecting that to come out of his mouth, of the many questions he could have asked her. She didn't answer immediately she was so shocked. She blinked a few times trying to collect her thoughts. "Uh, no, I don't think anyone knows other than Carter since he was there. I doubt he'd tell anyone, not even Allison." She could see him reacting, if only slightly, to the sadness apparent in her eyes. "I didn't much like talking about that, you know." He didn't dispute that. Zane waited for something more, still holding the gun steady on her.

Jo sighed and continued. "You recreated when we first met. I was coming into the Sheriff's Office to change and you had decorated the cell with all that crap you bought on Carter's card." She laughed humorlessly, pain simmering right underneath. "You handed me a lingerie box and I made some stupid joke about trying on whatever you had gotten me. And then you were down on one knee, telling me that I'd made an honest man out of you; that we should make it official." Jo could feel the familiar moisture well up in her eyes. This was not the time, she inwardly screamed at herself.

He nodded but remained silent.

"Why that? I never even told you about it so you wouldn't know if I was lying or not?"

Zane dropped his head a little and sighed. "I asked because I wanted to know. That doesn't sound like my style at all."

Jo's heart sank. It seemed more and more likely that she'd have to take him out if the plan was going to work.

With an uncharacteristic hesitation, Zane continued. "But what he—I—said? I've thought that. About you. Not that I want to get married but that I liked who I was when I was with you and I wanted to give us a try. That's what I was trying to tell you before I left."

Jo's eyes softened. Damn him. He just had to go and make it that much harder for her to shoot him.

"What happened to your walkabout?" he asked changing tactics.

Jo deflated again at the mention of her disastrous trip. She'd wanted answers but all she got was one catastrophe after another before finally finding out that the worst possible thing that could have happened with the Astraeus mission had, in fact, transpired. She'd been too unsure of Zane and herself to hold on to him before he left and she turned around to discover that he may have been pulled from her forever.

Zane waited for an answer, not budging.

She didn't know what he wanted to hear and she didn't have the energy to try and figure it out. So she just spilled everything that came to mind. "I don't know what happened with my walkabout. It wasn't anything like how Taggert made it sound. I tried, you know, going somewhere but it never seemed to work out." She sighed, arm lax but still alert to his movements. "I went to the beach but that was all wrong and I got towed. I should have gone to the desert, that's the lesson I learned." She frowned and shook her head, still so annoyed with her decisions for those four weeks she'd wandered around. "Why didn't I just go to the damn desert! It was the same distance and maybe I would have learned something instead of wasting my time on that stupid rock with that stupid parking sign and that stupid cop who had no compassion. She knew exactly how many points that would add to my license."

By now, Zane was staring at her, expression unreadable but scrutinizing. Jo didn't notice though because she was building up to a right and good rant.

"So then I actually go to the desert and there's all these people there and that wasn't how I imagined finding out anything. And then I started second-guessing myself like maybe I should have headed north instead so I drove back the way I came for two days before deciding that was completely ridiculous." She took a deep, calming breath recalling what an idiot she felt like after those two days. It had been demoralizing. "Halfway back to Eureka and I turn around again and decide to go back to my childhood home. Because that's how this whole thing started, see? It was Wen's stupid device that showed me how long I've been letting other people in my life dictate how I see myself. I let my brothers do it and my superior officers. I let Sheriff Cobb and Carter do it. Even my old boyfriend Callister. I thought he loved me but he was a damn robot. And he left me." She'd raised her voice so much that now she was practically shouting at him. "And you left me too or you would have if I didn't do things how you wanted them. After everything that's happened this year, after being torn to pieces, I needed to believe in myself again. I needed it more than my job or my friends or even the man I can so easily love if I weren't so scared of it."

"Jo?" Zane said softly.

Jo had stopped paying attention to Zane a while ago. But if she had, she would have noticed that he'd dropped the gun he'd held on her and was staring wide-eyed with the hint of a smile on his face. After she came up for air, both parts flustered and agonized over the indecisiveness of her thoughts, she finally registered that she was no longer under attack. In truth she didn't even have her gun trained squarely on him anymore, so involved in her rant. She dropped her arm and felt the strained release of the muscles, so tense in those moments of standoff.

"Yeah?" she responded, hoping he'd make a decision quick about whether he could trust her. If he wasn't going to come around, she needed to use this respite to take him out and try her luck elsewhere. She was not going to lose him like this.

He turned the gun around and offered it to her. "You're cute when you're clueless. No computer version of you could come up with something that incoherent. Don't take this the wrong way but you kind of suck at self-reflection." That maddening grin appeared across his face and Jo hadn't seen something that frustrating yet that welcoming in such a long time. She walked up to him and reached for the gun but he pulled it away from her at the last minute. "Is it really you?"

She redircted her movements to grab his tight t-shirt underneath that leather jacket she loved so much. Pulling him towards her, she kissed him like she'd been dreaming about for the last four weeks, two days, twenty-one hours and forty-five minutes.

Zane froze at first and Jo was afraid that he'd pull away from her. She let go of his lips and moved to step back instead. Before she could move even a few inches, Zane had his arm around her, pulling her back to his mouth and devoured her like he had never expected to be able to do this again. He tasted her in that wonderfully thorough way he had of doing most things he set his mind to. And they stood there, both with gun in hand, savoring their moment of reunion as if the fate of nineteen other people weren't at hand.

A small sound several feet from them found them both immediately breaking apart and simultaneously training their guns on the mostly immobile sheriff lying on the ground. Back to business.

"It is really good to see you." She smiled brightly at him and he returned it just as sweetly.

TBC

Author's Note: That's all for tonight - technical issues with the site slowed me down a little but I didn't want to leave y'all hanging. I've got a plane to catch in about 5 hours so I'll post again from the road.