Author's Note: Since I dropped the B-plot, things have been happening way too fast. So the delay is often caused by me trying to figure out how to slow it back down. Now you know. (That's also why this chapter is a little short.)

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Chapter 6

Zane took off from Jo's office with no set destination in mind. He followed the hallway as it curved, which of course took him right past Major Danny's office. There was no one in the office, but Zane got annoyed just seeing it.

On the surface, Jo's version of the events in Georgia were not that bad. Zane had spent nearly twenty four hours thinking about all the different possibilities that flowed from what Major Danny said, and really, Jo's story was probably the best case scenario. Second best. The real best case scenario would be that Major Danny made the whole thing up. But a few days, several years ago, and he was not even really married at the time, that was about as good as it was going to get. Zane could not really place why it was bothering him so much.

Sure, there were all those things he said about her pattern. It did change things to know that she took Major Danny back. And then there was that. She took him back after he cheated on her; that did not sound like the Jo Lupo Zane knew. She did tell him before that she had trouble being strong and confident around Major Danny, but this new information cast that in a different light. When she said that she had obviously been referring to back then, but was she still having that trouble now? And what would that mean for the six months that Major Danny was here and Zane wasn't? Somehow, Zane had not gotten around to thinking about that before now.

When Zane turned the next corner, there was the man himself getting off the elevator. Seeing Major Danny put Zane in an even worse mood. The two men acknowledged each other's presence with a polite nod as they passed.

And then Zane knew what it was that was really bothering him. It was the "I don't want to." That was an answer, and it was not the one he wanted. It was when Jo said that his felony convictions were the one real difference between him and Major Danny. It was that the Jo Lupo he knew never showed any kind of weakness, except when it came to Zane. And now . . .

With all of that swimming around in his head, Zane made a bad choice. He turned back and called after Major Danny, as though any good could come from that. "Callahan, wait."

Major Danny met him halfway. "Yeah?"

There was no one else in that hall at the moment, so Zane could at least be relieved that he would not have an audience. With nothing planned, Zane just winged it. "Look, I get that you have a history with my girlfriend, and it's obvious that you still want her."

Major Danny shook his head like that was ridiculous. "Zane, I—"

Zane was not sure when they had gotten on a first name basis, but okay. "Don't. And I get this feeling from you that you're just biding your time for three weeks until I'm gone, and then you're going to make your move. And if that's the case, I can't really do anything about it." That was not a good place to end, so he kind of had to keep going. "And I wish I could tell you that we're impervious to sabotage, but I'm going to be gone the same amount of time we've been together. And I'm not crazy about the idea of her ex-boyfriend being in town during that time."

Zane was still trying to figure out where he was going with this when Major Danny interrupted. "Okay, I don't know when you're going to get to a point, but all I'm hearing is that you think there's a pretty good chance your girlfriend is going to sleep with me while you're gone."

That was a fair assessment of what he was saying. Why couldn't he just tell Major Danny that they were impervious to sabotage? Now he had to figure out a damage control strategy. "Well, what I'm really saying is I don't know what's going to happen while I'm gone. It's not an ideal situation. But what I do know is that when I get back, no matter what happened with you, she's going to pick me because she is crazy about me. And that's what I wanted you to know."

Zane knew that was about as well as he could hope to salvage things, so he turned and walk back toward the elevator. From behind him, Danny called, "You know, she used to be crazy about me."

Zane did not break his stride. "Yeah, used to be."

The most logical place for Zane to go was the elevator, since there was nothing on this floor for him. But it would mess up his cool exit if he just stood waiting at the end of the hall, so instead he turned yet another corner. At this point, he had pretty much circled back around to Jo's office. He probably should have gone back to her; he had not really left things on the best of terms. But after his stupid conversation with Major Danny, he did not trust himself to talk to Jo. No, right now, he just wanted to do something easy, like adjust the calibrations of the low-background multi-HPGe spectrometer for measuring neutrinoless double beta decay.

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After her upsetting and confusing conversation with Zane, Jo had trouble getting her mind back on work. His declaration that he didn't care got stuck on a loop and made it difficult for her to concentrate. Because what did that even mean? What, was he just done with her because of something that happened years before she ever heard of Zane Donovan? How many women in this very town had he slept with prior to hooking up with her, while she was faithful to him during the same period in an alternate timeline? What right did he even have to be upset?

She picked up her tablet for probably the fifth time since Zane walked out, and she almost remembered what it was that she needed to look up. But then Danny walked in, without knocking, and completely wrecked her concentration again.

"Hey, I just ran into Zane out in the hall." He gestured out in that direction. "Did you guys have a fight or something?"

Jo did not know how to answer that. She was not even sure whether or not that was a fight, let alone what she wanted to tell Danny about it. She laid the tablet back on her desk. "Why? What did he say?"

Danny shrugged. "Nothing specific. It just sounded like maybe you guys had a fight and that maybe it had something to do with me."

So much for keeping up appearances. "We talked about you. It wasn't a fight."

"Oh, was it about what happened in Georgia? Because I honestly thought he knew or I wouldn't have said anything."

Jo laughed. "You didn't think he knew. You hoped he didn't know." What really bothered Jo was that Danny's attempt to cause problems between them worked. If what happened was a fight, that was exactly what they were fighting about. "Did you tell him you were married at the time?"

He paused for just a second, and in that second Jo remembered the alternate timeline. Nothing was different with Danny yet, but those changes had a way of sneaking up on her. But then he shook his head. "I don't think so. I mean, I wouldn't lie. I probably just referred to Rachel as my ex-wife, and he got the wrong idea."

"And I'm sure you have no idea how that happened. It's not like you were purposely misleading."

Danny looked slightly amused. "She is my ex-wife."

It was easier to let it go. "It's my fault anyway. I should have told Zane about Georgia when I told him about everything else. But we talked about it, and you don't have to worry, because we're going to be fine. Thanks for your concern." She picked up the tablet for the sixth time. "But if you don't mind, I'm kind of busy here."

Danny nodded. "Right, I didn't mean to interrupt."

He did not look entirely convinced as he walked out. That was probably her fault as well. It was a little hard to sell that she and Zane were going to be fine when she was pretty sure it was not true. She stared at the tablet for a few seconds before putting it back on her desk. This was not going to be a very productive workday.

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