A/N: Sorry this took so long to finish. There was NaNoWriMo, the holidays, and more. But here is the final chapter of Jo's Secret. I hope it's been worth the wait.
Disclaimer: I make no money off of this. I do not own Eureka or the characters.
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It was Monday morning and Jo sat in her office, mind wandering. Ever since her house warming party she felt a little lighter. There was a bounce in her step. She had begun to feel as she had when she had first started seeing Zane. And yet...
"Hey Lupo."
The object of her daydreams stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame arms crossed and hesitant.
"Zane," Jo cleared her throat, sitting up a little. She allowed a small smile of welcoming lift up the corner of her mouth, before she reasserted her professional demeanor. "Can I help you with anything?" she asked, even though she hoped he was here on a social visit.
"I don't know. You've seemed surprisingly distant after your party. Considering, you know..." he trailed off, but he did move closer into the room, standing behind one of her chairs.
Jo sighed. "Zane. It's just so much to take in right now and-"
"I thought we were going to work together on this, JoJo," he cut in. "Why did you take me off the project?"
"Wait, what? What do you mean take you off the project? Which?"
"You know which one, Jo. The one Grace and I had been working on. What happened? Decided to give it to someone else?" She heard the hurt in his voice, and she blinked, trying to clear her mind. Assess the problem, deal with the emotions later, she reminded herself.
"Zane, I did no such thing. What makes you think I had?"
"All of my data is gone. Not erased... but removed. The hardware itself. I checked the security access codes, Jo. They were yours."
Jo stood, taking a deep breath. "Zane, my codes may have been used, but it wasn't by me. Which means..."
"It was someone else," Zane finished for her, looking down and frowning. "But why?"
"Because it was too dangerous."
Jo and Zane looked up at the same time to see Henry in the doorway. "Henry?" Jo asked in question.
"Lets go somewhere we can talk."
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An hour later they stood in Jo's old office, the current sheriff's office. Carter and Andy were responding to a few down traffic lights, so they had the room to themselves. Zane leaned against Carter's desk, but Jo was having trouble relaxing. Too many things over the years had happened in this room and the only way she could stay focused was to push it all away until later.
"Okay Henry, explain why you violated GD protocol and used my security access codes." She folded her arms over her chest.
"It's too dangerous. What you were doing - or planning on doing - would have had very bad repercussions beyond what we could even hypothesize."
"You mean reintegrating memories from the other timeline?" Zane interjected.
"Not just one other timeline," Henry continued, "but all the other timelines."
Jo raised her hand as high as her face in a mock request for the floor. "Going back in time and altering the timeline is very restricted and controlled, Henry. And I thought theoretical."
"The only reason why you'd be so concerned is if you've been the one to go back before." Zane looked pointedly at Henry. "Is that it? And is that the reason why you couldn't tell us in GD?"
Henry nodded, his face dropping. "Yes. I'm not proud of it. I was going through a very dark time. I know there are at least half a dozen different timelines by now, and there's no telling how many more. The more we tamper with it, experiment with it, not only will it attract more attention, but also run the risk of unbalancing time as we know it. There are just too many things that could go wrong. I'm not just talking about remembering the timelines, but also trying to change or fix or alter them."
Jo slumped back against the desk that used to be hers, and would never be again. "So it sounds like we're pulling the plug on the whole thing," she acknowledged softly.
Henry nodded. "I've spoken with a few others, and we're planning on a formal meeting to confirm it."
The implication that she'd lost her Zane truly and forever hit her in the chest. She put one hand up over her mouth and turned away, willing herself to hold it in until she was alone.
"Jo-" Henry made a move towards her, but Jo put up a hand to keep him back. She turned her body half away, as if protecting herself from an invisible onslaught.
Henry instead turned to Zane who had shuttered his expression. "Zane, Grace and I have been able to share memories through these neural memory devices. They're not completely tested out yet, but I'm sure her project could use a few more beta testers. If it's something Jo might be interested in... it's the least we could do. Take them, and think about it."
Jo listened to Henry leave, unwilling to turn around to see him go. She had been so hopeful in the beginning, when they had first started working on the project. There had to be a way to get back to the original timeline to her original Zane. There were so many possibilities, so many different things to try. And the scientists in Eureka were the smartest in the world. If they were not able to do it, who could?
Her hope had been holding her back from this Zane too, she knew. From embracing the new closeness she was feeling with him.
She felt a hand on her shoulder. Zane's. Jo was not ready to turn around yet, but her put her free hand overtop of his. Her other remained over her mouth as she folded a little in half, tears finally sliding silently down her cheeks to her fingers.
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It was some time later when Jo had managed to compose herself again. Henry must have told Carter not to come back because it was growing dark and neither he nor Andy had returned. Zane had remained, patiently, watching her as she silently worked through her grief of finally giving up.
Jo wiped her eyes with the last tissue from Carter's desk and threw it away. She excused herself to the small bathroom where she threw water on her face. Jo went through the motions of pulling her hair up again, smoothing it out. Recomposing her face as she was going to have to her life. She took a deep breath and went out to talk to Zane.
Zane was sitting in a chair facing away from her. Jo came over and stood next to him, a little nervous but more relaxed than she had before. "Sorry about that," she offered. "I guess I just needed to get it out."
He shrugged, obviously trying to downplay the seriousness of the situation. But the usual snark and sarcasm was gone from his face. Instead, she saw something akin tenderness. It made her ache a little. "I understand. I'd want someone to miss me that much someday too."
Normally Jo would try to respond, either to deny or push him away, but instead she was worn out. Tired on the inside. She pulled up a chair and sat down, facing him. "I had a good time at my housewarming party," she started, putting up a head so he would not interrupt before she was able to finish. "I really good time. Partly because you were there. But I may have teased you more than I really should have. Maybe just to test myself and see how I would feel."
"So I was an experiment?" he asked, though his eyes were more curious than hurt.
"Maybe. But I enjoyed it, more than I wanted to. And yeah, I wasn't really ready for that."
Zane held up one of the devices Henry had given him. "When do you think you might be ready for these?"
She looked at him and he was everything she wanted but did not have. Could this be the answer she had wanted all along?
"How does it work?" She asked softly, taking it from his hand, curious. She missed his surprised look, but caught the eagerness n his voice as he rattled off some technical babble. "No, I mean how do I operate it? As in do I get to chose the memories, or do you see whatever I'm thinking?"
He smiled at her, raising an eyebrow. "Afraid I can't handle you, Lupo?" But he continued on again, gently. "From what I know, when memories are triggered, they are then played back in the mind of both people who wear them."
"So it's random. And it can go either way, right? I'll get all of the awful ones of us that you have."
"Hey, come on! We had some good memories this time around a well. Quite a few in this room, too. Tell you what, JoJo. I'll show you one of mine if you show me one of yours." He wiggled his eyebrows again and Jo felt some of the fear in her chest loosen up a bit with her small laughter.
"I certainly do have a number from around here," she conceded, looking around everywhere except for him. "Are you sure you're ready for this?"
Zane took her hands in his. "Probably not. But I like to live on the edge. Come on, Lupo. Do you trust me?"
She considered. With her old Zane, definitely. And this one? She thought she was beginning to, and told him so. He put one of the devices in her hand, and Jo fit it on her neck, just under her ear.
"So how do I make this work again?" Before the words had barely left her lips she was picturing the first time they had met. Only this time it was from Zane's point of view. She saw her own face and the way he seemed to look at her ass whenever she was in the room. But it was like a memory, and she could still see Zane sitting in front of her with a concentrating look on his face.
Jo rolled her yes at him, and he held out his arms. "What? You were hot! Still are, too."
She could feel the excitement Zane had felt at seeing her receive the lingerie boxes, the pleasure at getting any sort of reaction out of her. Unbidden her own memories of that day came back to her, and she watched at the Zane sitting in front of her got to feel how annoyed and flattered she had felt at receiving them. "You never told me you liked them!" he exclaimed.
"I never told any version of you that I liked them," she added with a smile, but too easily her teasing mood was caught off guard by the next memory she had. Of Zane again in the jail cell, holding a lingerie box. Only this time inside of it was a ring.
"Maybe I'm not ready for this-" Jo was about to take off the device and stop the memory when Zane reached out and touched her arm.
"Wait. It'd like to see." Jo let the memory continue, jumping ahead from Zane's exit to her own return when they had come back. To find Zane in the jail again, confused and sarcastic.
Jo stood and started pacing, unable to sit still. She could feel Zane's confusion from his own memory of that day, the humor and ridicule he'd used to cover up his surprise. He had thought she was trying to play a prank on him, make him the butt of the joke.
She finally did remove the device, and wondered if it had done more harm than good. "So... what now?"
"I think we could have started off with some lighter, sure, but why not keep going? You have years of memories I'm looking forward to reliving."
"Why?" Jo turned to him, confused and on the verge of leaving. "Why would you want to?"
He shrugged, but just by looking at his face she knew he had already answered that to himself. "Because I want to know. I want to know what I, what we, once had. Because even if I can't remember, I have a pretty good feeling that the other me would have wanted to. That the other version of me wouldn't have stopped until he found a way to be with you again."
He had stepped up so close she could have closed her eyes and felt the heat from his body. "What if you don't like what you see?" she whispered.
Zane looked into her eyes and Jo shivered at how much want she saw reflected in his. "I don't see how I wouldn't."
Zane had loved her once. Maybe he would again. Jo gave him a tentative smile. "I warned you," she whispered, her smile growing as his did.
"Ooo, dangerous talk from-"
Jo shut him up with the kiss.
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