Everything Is Illuminated

The first day after their spat in GD, Zane resolved to give Jo the time and space he suspected she needed. He'd spoken with Carter after Carter had his own one-on-one time with Jo that day, and though the other man had refused to divulge specifics, the look on his face when they spoke only reinforced Zane's conviction that there were things Jo would need to work through herself before she accepted his presence in her life once more. This time, he wasn't going to push her. This time, it would be her choice.

Two days of cautious avoidance on his part ensued, coupled with two nights of restless, worried sleep that included long periods spent wide awake, staring at the ceiling while consumed in anxiety and doubt. Would she make the right choice? And what if he had never been the right choice to begin with? She'd only found herself in his arms by an accident of fate, after all. He wasn't exactly a catch; hell, he was a felon. He was as far from being a reasonable relationship choice for a security professional as one could possibly get. He certainly wasn't the man she'd once been in love with: she never said it, but every time she glanced at him with surprise in her eyes, he was reminded once more that when she looked at him, she saw someone else.

As another two days passed, Zane's restless nights and late night anxiety turned to relentless exhaustion and a persistent empty, gnawing feeling in his gut. Sunday morning came around, and he found himself at Café Diem just in time for brunch, just like any other Sunday. When Jo swung open the door, letting in a gust of cool autumn air, he was pushing a piece of Vincent's latest breakfast burrito around his plate, his appetite unequal to the demanding ache in his stomach. His breath caught in his throat the moment she stepped into the café in a midnight blue dress that hugged her subtly changing curves in all the right places. For a moment, Zane forgot all about the tension and the uncertainty that permeated this thing between them as he wondered what she would look like beneath that dress in two, three months' time, when the world would finally see tangible, unequivocal evidence of the scarcely contained fire that had ignited between them.

As if on cue, Jo turned her head and her eyes met his, the flames between them flaring with such force that Zane felt as if he'd been struck. But she looked away as quickly as she'd found his eyes to begin with, conflict written in her eyes. Zane felt his heart sink, but his despair was beginning to give way to frustration. He'd given her time, hadn't he? He'd given her all the space a person could get in this town. And she wouldn't even look him in the eye.

He looked down at his breakfast burrito, what interest he'd had in eating more vanishing. Behind him, Jo finished making her order and took a seat at the counter. In one smooth motion, Zane grabbed the plate from the table in front of him and crossed the room to deposit it on that very same counter. Unable to resist needling her, he deliberately let his arm brush firmly against hers as he put down the half-empty plate, her personal space dwindling to less than nothing in under a minute. He could feel, as much as he could hear, her sharp intake of breath at the contact. He smirked, though it was laced with a bitterness which her stalwart refusal to look at him ensured she would miss. Hate me if you must, Josefina, but you can only ignore me for so long, he thought smugly. But despite her initial shock, Jo refused to move a muscle or acknowledge his presence. His frustration with her increasing, Zane slammed his empty coffee mug next to the plate with just a little too much force, causing her to make a startled little jump in her seat, and he whipped around to stalk with irritation out of the café. Zane steeled himself not to look back as he left the café, his shoulders tight with annoyance, therefore missing the pair of hazel eyes which guiltily watched him go.

Surprisingly, Jo was having a better time of it than Zane, despite her irritation with the new restrictions imposed on her and her ongoing concerns regarding her position as Chief of Security. In part, this was probably due to her impromptu therapy session with Carter (which, though she didn't truly regret it, was making it hard to look him in the eye), but in many ways, the improvement in Jo's mood was due to the effect their temporary estrangement was having on Zane.

Jo's past relationship with Zane, whatever else it may have been, had never been perfect. There had always been road bumps: the sort you'd expect to stem from commitment issues, emotional issues, even just the force of two strong personalities colliding. A collision like that was bound to result in sparks: both the good and the bad.

By now, it was something to which Jo was well accustomed. Once upon a time, they'd settled into something of a dance. There were steps: Zane would say or do something, Jo would overreact, Zane would get annoyed by her overreaction, she would storm out, she would avoid him once she calmed down and realized she'd been unreasonable (or, occasionally, until he realized he was the one in the wrong), and he would avoid her stubbornly until she made an overture, at which point it would all end in fantastic make-up sex.

She'd become attached to this little dance of theirs – it was predictable and it was safe. So when her first spat with Zane 2.0 fell into this neat pattern – after months of watching and wondering if things could ever be the same between them – Jo felt as if she'd let out a breath she'd almost forgotten she'd been holding. Perhaps things weren't so different after all.

Zane, unfortunately, didn't have the benefit of prior knowledge that Jo did, and for him, the events in Café Diem were the last straw for his already frayed nerves. He spent that night struggling with his growing sense of frustration with Jo, leaving him more sleep deprived than ever and, at this point, perhaps a little on the irrational side.

The following morning started poorly. Zane, freshly resolved to avoid Café Diem entirely, decided he would make his own breakfast instead of snagging a muffin to-go from the café as he'd done for the last five days, and settled upon a simple meal of scrambled eggs and coffee. Things went rapidly downhill when he discovered that he'd misplaced the frying pan whenever he'd last used it, which, given his near-relocation to Jo's house and his frequent patronage of Café Diem, had been quite a while ago. He was so preoccupied with his quest to locate the frying pan that he nearly burned the pot of coffee which had been boiling away on his stovetop. Any relief he might have felt in rescuing his coffee evaporated rapidly when his left hand slipped and he spilled scalding coffee on his right, which was, of course, his dominant hand. Fed up with the stream of minor failures, Zane tossed the cookware into his sink to be dealt with later and resigned himself to making an appearance at Café Diem.

In some ways, Café Diem ended up being worse than the disaster zone Zane called 'home.' It was true that the food was good and delivered in a timely fashion, but the meal also came complete with a gossip chain that stretched across town and a café full of overly inquisitive scientists. When Zane finally reached Café Diem, the typically bustling café was suspiciously quiet, more than a few overly curious eyes surreptitiously following his progress into the room. Jo was nowhere to be seen, just as Zane had hoped, but when he turned his back on the room to make his order, he could feel the combined weight of their gazes on him, making the hairs on the back of his neck prickle and stand at attention. The low murmur of voices behind him built and intensified, snippets of conversation permeating the air around him.

"…right outside of Director Fargo's office, no less…"

"…heard from Zoe Carter the other day…"

"…who knows what Lupo was thinking…"

Zane didn't realize he was clenching his jaw until he caught the nervous expression on Vincent's face as the other man handed him his muffin and coffee to go. He reminded himself, as always, that he was tolerating this for Jo's sake. But for the first time in a month, the thought didn't bring him the comfort it usually did. Instead, a traitorous voice inside his head asked him, and what if it's all been for nothing? Zane growled just under his breath, making Vincent jump with alarm. He muttered a quick thanks to Vincent and made his escape.

"Have – have a nice day," Vincent called after him hesitantly, but Zane couldn't be bothered to respond. He made a point of carefully securing his muffin and coffee in the hopes of avoiding a return trip.

By the time Zane reached GD, his mood had only soured further. He stormed into the nullweps lab around ten, causing Parrish to glance up from his clipboard.

"Late again, Donovan," Parrish pointed out, a mocking edge to his tone. He'd watched Zane with no small degree of amusement for the first three days of Zane's self-imposed exile from Jo's life, though he'd offered very little comment on this latest development in the little soap opera that periodically flared to life in his lab.

"Bite me, Parrish," Zane snapped, slamming his to-go mug on the lab bench. The other, somewhat less forthright members of the lab exchanged glances and made themselves scarce, wanting no part of an altercation between the two most unpredictable scientists in GD.

"Wouldn't want to catch something," Parrish drawled, stepping closer to Zane's workspace. He mock-shuddered. "I would hate to look as whipped as you." Zane looked up from his computer, his eyes shooting daggers at his supervisor and sometime friend. The lab held its collective breath, half-expecting them to come to blows, but after a brief pause Parrish stepped back and walked away, Zane returning his attention to the computer screen. Only his whitened knuckles where his right hand clenched the mouse betrayed his lingering tension as he struggled to focus on his work and ignore the curious glances thrown his way by the other members of his lab.

Several floors up, Jo was also facing problems with distraction in the workplace. That seemed, she thought wryly, to have become a common theme in her life lately. Part of it, she was sure, could be blamed on boredom and frustration. Since Allison had put her on restricted duty, her day-to-day responsibilities consisted entirely of paperwork and mediating between bickering scientists. The warring factions of scientists within Global Dynamics had been a constant headache starting in the first few weeks of the new timeline, and it continued to persist in spite of their best efforts. As the now-former head of Global, Allison was convinced it was all the result of the alternate Fargo's impossible deadlines, strict penalties and artificially tight competition for grants, which had served to pit labs against each other. Whatever the cause, the infighting had been at an uneasy equilibrium when they had arrived. They'd been unable to resolve the tension that had taken over GD, but until Jo and Zane had gone public, they'd been able to maintain the precarious balance they'd found upon their arrival. After the relationship between Jo and Zane, such as it was, had gone public, the power dynamic had been shaken substantially and things had largely devolved into chaos.

As far as the labs at the 'top of the heap' in Global Dynamics were concerned, the Enforcer had just switched her allegiance to the underdog labs and had declared herself in support of Zane Donovan, and by extension Isaac Parrish, the two scientists who posed the greatest threat to their control over and success in Global Dynamics. Since then, there had been a series of sabotages (some of which had required calling Carter in because it wasn't safe for Jo to handle the results firsthand), the occasional theft of equipment, and one fistfight (though Jo suspected there had been an underlying love triangle involved with the latter incident). The worst episode had occurred a couple weeks before when a lackey from one of the physics labs had reprogrammed M.A.R.T.H.A. and attempted to frame Zane as the hacker responsible, something which her alter-ego would never have hesitated to believe. The scientist responsible had ultimately been found and penalized, but Jo's utter failure to pursue Zane as a suspect had only reinforced the concerns of the major labs about her loyalties.

Jo suspected that Dr. Snyder, the head of the physics department (Zane's boss, no less) had orchestrated the whole thing, though she and Carter had failed to turn up any proof to that effect. The man had been a problem even in their original timeline, particularly for Zane, who'd been a rising star in the department; Jo suspected that the instability that existed in the administrative workings of GD in the new timeline had only made it easier for the man to accumulate power. The concerted efforts of the time-traveling five to put an end to that instability had no doubt been making his life very difficult. Jo imagined the appearance of a chink in her armor, in the form of Zane, no less, had seemed to him the perfect opportunity to regain ground lost in the preceding months.

Jo's hands paused, hovering over her keyboard in the midst of typing up the latest incident report as a thought ran through her head. Her involvement with Zane was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to material Snyder could use to wreak havoc for their small group. If he were to nose into their affairs and find evidence of their time-travel experiences, he could end up getting them all sanctioned and therefore out of his way. Jo dropped her hands down to her desk, sighing. She really needed to speak with Zane, before things got out of hand between them. She knew well enough that their altercation the prior week had been her own damn fault for overreacting. It was her modus operandi, after all. But the fact of the matter was, they didn't have room for this kind of discord in their little cabal of inadvertent law-breakers. They were all walking a thin line right now, Zane and herself included, and now there was an innocent life on the line. Jo's hand drifted absently to her lower abdomen, where she let it rest for a moment before pulling it away and bracing herself to stand.

The fact of the matter was, Jo admitted to herself as she pushed herself out of the chair and headed for her office door, she and Zane both knew she should have apologized already a week ago. Well, she'd avoided the conversation for long enough. It was long past time to face the music.

It was obvious that Zane knew the minute Jo stepped into the lab by the way his back stiffened where he stood, leaning over the test results displayed on his computer screen. Rather than confront Zane immediately, Jo approached Dr. Parrish.

"Would you mind giving us a moment?" She inquired politely, hands clasped in front of her. Parrish glanced at her, considering.

"Oh, by all means," he drawled emphatically, eyes full of irritation sliding to the computer screen where Zane was ignoring them both pointedly. Parrish caught the attention of the other lab workers and jerked his head toward the inner sanctum of the observation room attached to the lab, which was currently set up like a firing range. Jo eyed it curiously but concluded it was best not to ask, at least not at the moment. She opened her mouth, about to tell him not to go to such trouble – it made more sense for her and Zane to speak alone in the observation room than to move the whole lab temporarily, after all – but then she caught a look at Zane's stormy face and realized there was no way he was going anywhere voluntarily.

Once the other members of the lab had gathered in the observation room, Jo approached Zane, leaning against the lab table holding his computer.

"Zane," she said quietly, but he didn't respond, tapping determinedly on the keyboard.

"Zane," she tried again, her voice slightly raised in pitch. He cast her a momentary glance, then looked back at the computer screen.

"Oh, I exist?" Zane muttered as he typed into the computer. "Thought something felt different today." He finished, hitting the enter key with slightly more force than necessary. Jo bristled at his typically snarky attitude, but forced herself to count to ten and take a deep breath. You're the one in the wrong here, she reminded herself.

"Would you just look at me?" She demanded of him, and Zane's hands froze over the computer keys. He turned his head slowly, eyebrows raised inquiringly.

"Yes, Josefina?" He asked, a little snide. Jo narrowed her eyes.

"I'm here to apologize." She said slowly, drawing out the words. He gave her a patronizing look.

"You know, for someone so worried about having an audience, you've come to the wrong place," he replied, looking pointedly towards the observation room. Jo's eyes followed his gaze and she almost groaned aloud – the vast majority of the lab was very nearly pressed up against the windows, watching them. The only thing missing was popcorn. She turned back to Zane, who looked faintly smug in spite of his aura of irritation.

"Fine," she all but growled. "You win. But this isn't over," she promised. "We are going to talk." She informed him with a steady gaze, eyebrows raised pointedly. For once Zane was the one to look away.

"Whatever," he muttered, turning back to his computer screen. Jo rolled her eyes in annoyance but turned and made a quick departure from the room, her eyebrows knit together with frustration. She would make him talk, one way or another.

After a remarkably therapeutic session with the punching bag in her basement dojo, Jo found herself in Café Diem, deep in thought. Her gaze was absently fixed on the table where she and Zane had been sitting on their disastrous first date. The table was currently inhabited by Larry, who squeaked in terror and fled when he caught the intense gaze Jo had inadvertently fixed on him, barely remembering to hand his plate over to Vincent before making his hasty exit. Jo barely registered his departure, preoccupied as she was with thoughts of Zane.

She'd have to get him alone if she wanted to talk things out with him, she realized that now. His caveat about their audience, though still a blatant stalling tactic, had been a legitimate point. A poorly timed public display of emotion was what had got her into this mess, after all; for different reasons, true, but words spoken in the heat of the moment had a way of revealing things best kept hidden. Should this turn into a genuine fight rather than a mere overreaction on her part, it would be better that it happen away from prying ears. If this apology was going to get them back on track, the last thing they needed was for the apology itself to attract as much attention as the fight had. One word about time travel overheard by the wrong set of ears, and their precariously balanced house of cards would come toppling down on them, and it would hurt a lot of other people in the process, not the least of which being the baby. Jo had no illusions about what would happen if the DOD got word of a baby whose very existence defied the laws of physics. As far as Jo was concerned, "sanctioned" was not an ominous enough word to describe the possibility that her child could be dragged away to a secure location to be locked up like a lab rat and studied by a scientist less scrupulous than the majority of Eureka residents. And that was the better option. Jo's fists clenched at the thought.

She took a deep, calming breath and turned her mind back to the problem at hand. So the meeting would need to be private. She could arrange that. Except… Jo tilted her head slightly in thought. Zane had made it clear enough that he had no interest in talking things out with her. However she played this, he wouldn't be joining her voluntarily. Jo bit her lip. She could always make him come with her, of course, and after his snarky behavior in the lab the thought held a certain… appeal, but a little voice in her head that sounded a whole lot like Carter pointed out that it would be an excessive use of force and not very helpful besides. Jo reluctantly admitted to herself that taking Zane somewhere against his will to apologize wasn't likely to improve matters.

Jo glanced up reflexively in response to the sound of the café door opening, half-hoping to see Zane come through the door, solving her problem for her. Instead Carter came barreling through, looking flustered.

"Vincent, please, you've got to help me," he blurted out. Vincent stared at him.

"Slow down, Sheriff, what's wrong?" Carter glanced behind him, realization no doubt dawning as to how many people were now watching him. He lowered his voice, not wanting to become the latest subject of gossip. Now curious, Jo strained her ears to listen.

"It's Allison's birthday tomorrow, and I don't have anything planned," he hissed. Vincent's eyes widened.

"What were you thinking?" He whispered, scandalized.

"She only just mentioned it an hour ago!" Carter defended himself, and Jo smirked.

"Well you'd better get it moving, Sheriff, you have some big shoes to fill," Vincent warned him in an undertone, attempting to be encouraging but only inadvertently reminding the other man of his insecurities about Allison's past relationships, namely her history with Nathan Stark. Carter froze momentarily, and then shook his head once, sharply.

"Thanks, Vincent." He muttered. "Look – I was thinking I'd surprise her at home with dinner tomorrow night. No business, no kids, just us…" he trailed off meaningfully. "Anyways, I'm no cook. Could I get you to whip up something for the two of us?" Carter asked pleadingly. "And nothing weird!" He added as an afterthought. Vincent rolled his eyes and began the usual tirade over Carter's plebian tastes, but Jo's attention waned away as an idea began to form in her mind. Catch him by surprise… it was the only reasonable solution. Jo grinned to herself as she watched Carter and Vincent negotiate menus. She knew exactly how she'd do it.

Jo slipped into Zane's house around seven that evening, still propelled by the restless energy that had driven her to approach Zane in the nullweps lab earlier that day. She headed straight for the kitchen, two take-out bags in hand – one for her dinner and the other, which she promptly placed in the freezer, full of Vincent's homemade rocky road ice cream. Tossing the bag with her dinner carelessly onto the kitchen table, she began rummaging through drawers and cupboards for silverware and plates, humming with quiet satisfaction to find he kept them all where she expected them to be.

She settled down at the table, stomach growling, and glanced at the clock by the door into the kitchen. The positions of the hands indicated it was just past seven, though of course none of the numbers on the clock corresponded to the appropriate hour or minute: Zane had once explained to Jo that the inward spiral of digits on this clock represented the infinite decimal places of pi. (He'd then gone on to explain, with no small enthusiasm, that towards the middle of the clock some of the numbers could only be seen using a magnifying glass, to which Jo had rightly pointed out that nobody was likely to spontaneously inspect his kitchen clock with a magnifying glass anytime soon. He, of course, already had.)

Jo dug into her eagerly anticipated Greek salad with gusto. The poorly-named 'morning' sickness which had plagued her through the first trimester was tapering off, leaving her instead with an unusually voracious appetite, to which Vincent was all too thrilled to pander. In only ten minutes, Jo was spitting out the last few olive pits and licking the last of the dressing and feta cheese from her fork with satisfaction. She wasted no time in reaching for the second well-sealed bag from Café Diem and tearing it open to reveal a wealth of popcorn, all of which was well coated in salt and oregano. Jo reached in and popped a few in her mouth, closing her eyes in pleasure and savoring the taste. She finished the bag in short order then quickly rinsed the plate and silverware, placing them in the dishwasher. Once she'd cleaned up the remnants of her dinner, she glanced thoughtfully toward the freezer door, behind which the rocky road ice cream lay, but ultimately decided to let dessert be, for the moment – after all, the point had been to share with Zane, whether as an attempt to sweeten him up or as a post-reconciliation celebratory snack.

Instead, she began to wander aimlessly through the house. She hadn't been back to Zane's home since the morning she'd barged in and they'd hatched the plan that had made her current mess possible. At the time, she'd been much too distracted and anxious to compare the place she remembered to the version which now existed. Now that she knew the kitchen was much the same, her curiosity was piqued with regards to the rest of the house.

Zane had been living in this house, so far as Jo knew, since he'd first been released from Carter's custody and supervision. In the altered timeline, that had happened a full year later than in Jo's timeline, just after Stark had died. Zane had spent the interim in federal prison, while Stark had full reign over the big bang project made possible only by Zane's early work at MIT. When Zane had been pulled in by the other Fargo after Stark's death to take over data analysis, they were long past the initial, groundbreaking work, leaving Zane with a whole lot of paperwork for a project he wasn't even permitted to fully supervise. The restrictions placed on him while working on a project he'd designed himself had chafed badly, and Jo knew from her files that after a few bids for greater autonomy in his work were shot down, he'd begun to act out.

Unfortunately, his misbehavior had coincided squarely with her alter-ego's installation to head of security by Mansfield, shortly after Eva Thorne had fled Eureka and Carter had been (temporarily) fired from the Sheriff position. From what Jo had pieced together since their arrival in their strange new reality, the other Jo had gained her position during Andy's brief promotion to Sheriff. At that point, things in Eureka being as unstable as they were at the time, Jo had dug her heels in at the first sign of trouble from Zane and torn into the perceived threat like a guard dog on the offensive. From there, things had escalated.

Still, Jo realized as she looked through the rooms, Zane's place was much the same as it had been: the exception being, much as she had expected, the absence of any indication of their former relationship. Whatever other differences did exist – and she was certain there were some, she could almost feel them – were so minor as to be nearly indistinguishable. Jo hesitated at the doorway to Zane's bedroom, caught in all the memories, both good and bad, which she associated with that room. She stepped inside and switched on the light. At first glance, she saw nothing out of the ordinary, but then she caught a glint of something on the bedside table where there should have been nothing. Jo climbed onto the bed, sliding toward the headboard to get a better look. When she recognized the item for what it was, Jo's lips parted in a silent gasp of surprise.

The glint of light she'd seen had been the gleam of the lights off the glass of a picture frame, which in and of itself wasn't so odd, but the photo contained inside was of her and Zane, something which should have been impossible. For one fleeting, terrifying moment, Jo felt as if the floor, and her sanity, had been pulled out from under her. Had the timeline really changed, or was it all in her head this whole time? She was temporarily dizzied by the implications. But as the first breath of shock wore off, Jo gradually began to notice things, important things, about the photo. Most notably, that it was clear neither of them had known at the time they were being photographed. She didn't know the photo existed because she hadn't been aware the picture was being taken, and as she realized that she recognized the moment captured in the photo as one which had taken place only two weeks ago outside of Café Diem. Her tensed shoulders slumped in relief. A candid photo she hadn't noticed being taken was infinitely different from one which existed apparently in spite of the laws of physics. (Not unlike your baby, a little voice in the back of her head reminded her nastily, but she chose to ignore it.) She ran her fingers lightly over the picture frame, her heart clenching inexplicably at the sight of it. It was the last thing she'd expected to see in Zane's house, much less on his bedside table, and she wondered briefly where he'd gotten it from – and what, precisely, it meant.

As the brief adrenaline spike and alarm wore off, a wave of exhaustion, both mental and physical, washed over Jo. She glanced at the alarm clock by the bed. It was barely 7:20 – she'd torn through her meal a lot faster than she'd anticipated when she planned this – and she didn't expect Zane to arrival until 8:30 at the earliest. Surely she could just take a few minutes and rest her eyes for a little while so she'd have the energy to confront him when he arrived. There wasn't much point to her presence if she was too exhausted to talk things out with him, after all.

Jo lay back for a moment and found herself surprised by how comfortable his mattress was. She shifted, pulling the sheets down under her just far enough to allow her to slide beneath and pull them back over her. It was a lot better than her own mattress, even, she thought as she burrowed deeper into the sheets. His bed definitely hadn't been this nice before the shift in the timeline – perhaps because he hadn't spent so much time in it. She closed her eyes, realizing the ache that had been starting to form where her spine met her hips was beginning to ease… perhaps they'd have to revise their sleeping schedule, once he was speaking to her again, it was such a waste to leave this mattress unoccupied…

About two hours after Jo had broken into Zane's house, Zane turned the corner into his driveway with his motorcycle. After Jo's appearance at GD, he'd been pressed to get any work done, between the curious glances sent his way by the other members of the lab and his own mixed emotions. Around five he'd written off the day entirely, deciding instead to make a trip out to the old vacation house, something he'd been avoiding all week. It had been a beautiful day for it; the air had been brisk but it was a sunny day and the leaves around the lake were just beginning to change their colors. He'd stayed late, doing odd jobs around the house once the sun had set. By the time he left, around eight, he was exhausted from both physical exertion and emotional disquiet, though his head was beginning to feel a little clearer. On the ride back, he decided to approach Jo sometime in the next day – he'd let her stew for long enough, that much was clear, and in hindsight it had perhaps not been entirely fair of him to dismiss her so readily that afternoon.

Zane stepped off the motorcycle and walked it to the garage door, sliding the garage door up with his left hand then pushing the motorcycle into the garage ahead of him, pausing to close and lock the door behind him. He removed his helmet, hanging it on the hook placed nearby for that very purpose, and headed for the door adjoining the kitchen. He stepped through and paused immediately, looking around. Something seemed… off, though he couldn't put his finger on just what that might be. He tossed his keys onto the kitchen table and turned into the hallway, pulling off his leather jacket and hanging it in the hall closet on his way to his bedroom.

He sighed deeply as he stepped into the room, feeling worn out and drawn thin. Then he frowned in puzzlement as he picked up the familiar but out of place scent of lemons and gunpowder. As his eyes began to adjust to the low light levels, Zane found his gaze drawn to the center of his bed, where a small, Josefina Lupo-shaped lump slumbered peacefully, judging by her deep, rhythmic breathing. Stray locks of dark hair framed her face where her hair had taken flight from her typically businesslike ponytail, and her face had relaxed into contentment in her sleep. Despite his earlier irritation, Zane felt his mouth curve into a small smile, secure in his private conviction that he'd never seen anything quite so beautiful. He'd tried to hold onto his righteous anger, over the course of the day, but all he could seem to feel regarding her tardy overtures was the most overwhelming sense of relief. She'd come back. She probably deserved better, this crazy, bold, incredible woman, and one day much too soon she would no doubt realize it too. But for today, she'd come back, and right now that was all that mattered.

Jo woke up slowly, feeling warm and comfortable and incredibly secure, but uncertain why she'd woken at all. The bed shifted beneath her as a new weight sank into the mattress, and in her half-asleep state Jo thought nothing of it. A low, amused voice came from over her shoulder, and she turned instinctively toward the affection in the voice.

"You know, I don't remember leaving this here," Zane said in mock-reflection.

Jo opened her eyes blearily, turning to look over her shoulder with a slightly dazed expression.

"Zane?" She mumbled. Zane, having just climbing onto the bed, had himself propped up on arm against the pillows. He'd stripped down to his boxers – his typical nightwear – and was watching her with an amused expression. Jo knit her eyebrows together with confusion.

"What time is it?" She asked, straining to see the clock behind him. He stared at her for a moment then glanced behind him at the clock.

"Looks like ten to me." He informed her. She grunted in a most unladylike way and turned back over, burrowing deeper into his pillow. Zane grinned to himself and pulled the blankets down beneath him, sliding between the sheets and closer to Jo. His smile went from teasing to tender as he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her flush against him.

"You're completely crazy, Jo-Jo, I hope you know that," he murmured as he pressed a soft kiss by the sharp curve of her shoulder blade. She hmmed a sleepy, noncommittal acknowledgment, and Zane buried his face in the wild curtain of her dark hair then drifted off to sleep, content in the supposition that he had the entire length and breadth of the world in his arms.

Disclaimer: I still don't own Eureka. I also don't own Veronica Mars or Buffy. I don't know who does own Veronica Mars (whoever you are, you should've made the frakkin' movie), but I think we all know where the credit for Buffy goes. Why this matters you'll see below. ;)

A/N: So if anyone caught the Veronica Mars quote (too perfect not to use, friends) or the Buffy namesake (I actually had to look that one up. I don't know why it popped into my head.), congrats. You have unusual taste in tv shows. Anyways, moving along to the "don't hurt me!" part of the spiel. There's no point in trying to defend myself, here, guys. Zane and Jo did not make it easy for me to write this chapter, and in the meantime there were a myriad of shiny things to do. If it's any comfort, generally when I was all writer-blocked on this chapter I was working on later, easier chapters that are therefore more complete now. Still. This had probably made you periodically crazy. You should really thank ZeroGain for giving me the extra kick in the rear to finish this up. I was halfway there already but it was good to have a reminder that people were waiting on me. :) I even sort of like the way this chapter turned out in the end! So I really, really hope you do too.

ADM