Getting ready for bed was awkward. Tim was much like Andrea where it came to saying anything that was on his mind, and he didn't make it a secret that he didn't understand the equation that Zane was working on. Be it vacation or not he had a massive project due at GD and Fargo was still hounding him for a pulse damper for something.
"You really are a genius. I thought Andrea was just gushing." Zane blinked over.
"Andrea has talked with you about me?"
"Well yeah. Her new 'friend' from Eureka." The air quotes around friend gave Zane pause for a moment before shaking the thought away. Andrea had done almost everything possible of talking up Jo; there was no way that she would be harboring feelings for him.
So when Zane awoke to a hand shaking his shoulder he was confused to see Andrea in his room.
"I need you to come with me." She whispered, yanking on his hands and pulling him out of bed. He felt slightly awkward walking around in pajama pants and nothing else in General Mansfield's house but the thought shot away when Andrea linked her fingers through his. When they got into the hall, she quietly shut the door to Tim's room, leaving her brother snoring behind it.
"What's up?" He asked as casually as possible. He didn't really know what to think about her hand yanking on his and he wasn't sure about how to let her down gently.
"Jo's flailing." She said, cracking open the door to her room. "She punched me in the stomach when I tried to get her to wake up." Zane frowned in thought as his eyes adjusted to the lamp light in the room. Jo was twisted in the sheets, a sheen of sweat across her face.
"So what do you want me to do about?" He asked quietly.
"Just go wake her up." She whispered back.
"If you got punched, she would wake up and taze my ass." Zane whispered. "I like my ass, I don't want it tazed again." Andrea's eyes rolled.
"Agreed, you have a great ass. But she won't taze you just go over there." She said, pushing on him with more force than he thought she possessed. When she didn't stay with him he turned around. She was slowly backing out the door.
"Where are you going?" He asked.
"She gets self-conscious. Just go." She said, pulling the door closed.
Zane sighed just as Jo whimpered and thrashed the other direction. Never in his two years of knowing her had he heard Jo whimper. Not even when she had been shot but not really shot. He walked slowly, like a hunted animal, over to the bed and slowly sat down next to her hip. She had thrashed so much she was twisted in the blankets. He reached out slowly, flinching as a pained look crossed her face, and gently touched her arm.
"Jo?" Her eyes snapped open, not at his touch but as his voice. She was breathing, her chest heaving under her tank top and her eyes shifted to his. He stilled, afraid of the pain she was about to inflict upon him. He didn't think it was possible for him to be more terrified than at that moment.
That is until Jo launched up, burying her face in his bare shoulder and clinging to his waist. This terrified, was completely different. He knew how to handle angry, pain inflicting Jo. Desperate wrapped around him Jo was something he never thought he would ever experience, despite all the fantasies.
Suddenly, before he knew what he was doing, his hand come up to smooth down her bed rumpled hair. It was loose, not pulled back in her pony tail and the coolness of it tickling down his back calmed him. As his hand brushed her head he knew, from somewhere he had no idea where, what to do.
"It's ok Jojo." He whispered, leaning his stumbled cheek against her hair. "It was just a nightmare." His fingers slowly worked out the tangles in her hair and he felt her fingers making circles on his waist. He felt her breast pressing against his side, and felt her breathing start to calm. Without thinking he pressed a kissed to the top of her head.
The contact of his lips to her head made her freeze. She slowly pulled away, looking at him with wide eyes, trailing her fingers across his abs. Her eyes danced around his face briefly before landing on his. He didn't back down. He just stared back at her, watching her slightly deflate. The tingling sensation left from her fingers was still stretching across his stomach, his hand still linked through her hair.
"Jojo?" He asked. She reached up, slowly but determinedly removing his hand from her hair. Shock and disappointment shot through his chest, but he allowed it not to show on his face.
"Go back to bed Zane." She said, scooting back so her back was pressed against the head board.
"Jo." She shook her head, pulling her hair over her shoulder and slowly twisting a piece around a finger. "Come on, what just happened?" He asked, shifting to face her better.
"Nothing." She said quietly.
"Nothing. You punched Andrea in the stomach when she tried to wake you up, me you launch at like I could keep you safe from anything. Come on Lupo."
Her eyes closed and he could tell that she was attempting to keep her breathing under control. He watched as the twitches in her face showed that she was also trying to get her face under control. So he did something stupid and pushed his luck.
"Come on Jo. Just tell me about the ring and why you reacted that way to me just now."
"Get out."
"Jo come on. Just talk to me. Remember how we used to talk?" Her hazel eyes opened and she locked eyes with him.
"More than you know."
"See. What the hell does that mean Lupo?" He said, shifting again so he was closer to her. "We were obviously something. Why can't you just tell me?"
"There is nothing to tell." She said quietly, stubbornly sticking to her story.
"Bull shit and you know it." She glanced down, pulling the comforter into her fingers and started playing with it. "My body knew that to calm you down, playing with your hair would do it. I knew that the circles you were drawing meant it was working. I knew that a kiss would calm your breathing. Why did I know these things?" He demanded. "The combination of those things, and the ring Jo? You can't hide from me forever."
"I punched Andrea?" He saw the obvious distraction.
"Yeah. Being on the bad end of your punches, I can say with pretty decent certainty she is probably throwing up." Jo flinched.
"I'm fine." Zane looked over to the Blonde who reached over and yanked the covers out to cover the whole bed instead of just Jo. "Thanks for the help Zane." She said crawling back in bed.
He heard the dismissal in her voice but he kept staring at Jo. Her hands were working the covers practically into knots. He reached out and grabbed her hands, fingers splaying out over the pulse in her wrists. He felt the boost in pulse rate against his fingers. For a second, Jo's fingers tightened around his wrist. His pulse sky rocketed in time with hers as he processed the fact that Jo Lupo was hanging onto him.
"Zane, get out before I wake up my dad." Jo's eyes had closed and Zane ignored Andrea. His brain didn't even compute the fact that two gorgeous women were lying in bed and he was sitting there with them, it was more focused on the one gorgeous woman clinging to him. He slid his fingers up her wrists feeling the soft flesh and the drumbeat of her pulse before something clamped onto his ear.
"Move now." Andrea said, yanking him off the bed by his ear.
"Ow. What the hell Dre." He said as she shoved him out the door. He reached up, rubbing his ear so it would stop throbbing as Andrea smiled sweetly at him.
"Thanks for the help." She said just as sweetly and closed the door, locking it when it shut. He could have picked it, he had picked it, but the pain in his ear lead him to go back to bed instead.
E
Jo was breathing so loudly she didn't hear the lock click. She only felt Andrea climbing back into the bed. Most of her wanted to run into the hallway and tackle Zane, ripping those thin pants from him in the process. The touch on her elbow brought her eyes open.
"I'm sorry I punched you." She whispered.
"It's ok. I'm sorry that I brought him in here." Jo shook her head. Andrea knew the history between Zane and Jo, both histories, and she wasn't stupid. It was logical that she would know Zane's presence would be able to wake her up. "Wanna talk about it?" Jo looked down. Andrea was cuddled into her pillow, her eyes wide and focused. Jo slumped, falling back under the covers and settling onto her side.
"It was just… a memory." She really didn't like the fact that she still suffered from PTSD from her time over sees. Barlow would have said that it was because what she went through was completely traumatic; watching a team mate get tortured to death would scar anyone for life.
"Did he know?" Andrea asked. Jo nodded.
"In a sense. I have had them since I got to Eureka. I couldn't talk about them though, so Zane just knew that it was something bad." She said.
"I know. I read the file." Jo frowned. The file, which she assumed had been redacted, had the highest priority clearance available. "I hacked Daddy's computer." The simple wicked smirk that spread across her friends face calmed her more from her encounter with Zane. "I really am sorry. I didn't think through the repercussions of a half-naked Zane sitting on your bed." Jo smiled.
"Me either. I thought breaking off that kiss in the sheriff's office was hard."
"I have a vibrator if you need it." Andrea said, pointing awkwardly toward her dresser. Jo laughed out loud at that one.
"Good night Dre." She said, throwing as much sarcasm as she could into the pet name Zane had adopted for her. Andrea smiled and turned the lamp off.