Rifiuto: Non Miriena

A/N: Well this is the final chapter. Hope you enjoy.

Rain pounded on the roof of his townhouse. The TV blared softly in the background, some movie he hadn't seen in years, and particularly didn't feel like watching now. Instead, he sat on the sofa, staring out the window, a beer in his hand. For the first time in nearly three weeks, he was starting to consider alcoholism as a worthy profession. Work had become meaningless without Jo around; he only went to Cafe Diem for food, and stopped joining the others for dinner; the sight of Henry and Grace, in married bliss, of Carter and Allison, crushing on each other like teenagers, was too much to bear without Jo by his side. He couldn't stand to see the others so happy when he was so miserable. Now, he knew what Jo had gone through after the timeline shift.

He let his mind wander back to that white, endless abyss, when, with each kiss, each touch, Jo had been his for a few blissful short hours. The taste of her lips on his was fading, her touch had vanished days ago, leaving him longing for her beautiful presence.

Life had lost all meaning with Jo gone.

Images passed through his mind; images of the wedding they were supposed to have, of the home they'd create, the babies they'd have made, the summers by the cabin, and he took a deep breath. They would never get that future they'd seen in that abyss, because Jo was in Vancouver, with her husband and daughter-

A knock startled him out of his thoughts, and he looked up. Answer it, you idiot!

But he didn't move. Instead, he let his thoughts take him away again, and again, he heard the knocking, this time slightly more frantic. Lightning split the sky as he eventually climbed to his feet and shuffled towards the door, not in the mood to talk or do anything other than crawl into bed and drink himself into an alcohol-induced coma. "Look, Carter, I don't care if Vincent's serving saki and fish eyes at Karaoke Night, I'm not-"

He stopped; he couldn't be seeing what was really in front of him. Could he?

Jo stood in the doorway; soaked to the bone, her long dark hair in wet curls down her back; her jeans and leather jacket were melded to her body, accenting her curves, and he could see goosebumps on her flesh. Her sneakers were coated in mud, and she was breathing heavy, as though she'd spent the last six hours running a marathon. She took a deep breath, her dark eyes slowly moving up to meet his gaze. They bore into his, holding his gaze, filled to the brims with emotions he couldn't read.

Several minutes passed before Zane was able to find his voice. "Jo?" This couldn't be possible. He... he couldn't really be seeing... there was no way she was standing on his front porch... she was in Vancouver, with her husband and daughter... not... not here, in Eureka...

"Jo, what... what are you-" But her mouth on his interrupted him. She reached up as their mouths met, wrapping her arms tight around his neck, tangling her fingers in his hair, sending the anti-social troublemaker stumbling back on his feet. His arms wrapped around her waist, holding her to him as he found himself drinking in her kiss. Eventually though, his reasoning won out, and he gently pushed her away. "Jo... what... what about... what about Evan? And Vanessa?"

She shook her head, not wanting to talk about them and instead returning her mouth to his. They moved back, slamming the door shut before she pushed him towards the sofa. His backside hit the material and before he knew it, she was straddling him, her mouth was sucking and nipping on his neck as her hands worked their way down his chest, undoing the buttons on his shirt. She nipped hard on the pulse at his throat, and he pulled away, staring into her eyes.

"Jo, what about your family?" She searched his eyes for a moment, realizing that he wasn't going to let her get away without explaining. He waited, seeing the pain in her eyes. Several tense minutes passed, before she sat back, taking his hand and playing with his fingers, her legs over his lap. She swallowed.

"I... I kept waking up in the middle of the night with... those images in my head. Of... of our wedding and the nursery and Mother's Day... and those two, beautiful children that could be ours. That des... deserve to be ours." She whispered, meeting his eyes briefly. He nodded, waiting. She laced their fingers together before unlacing them, counting the number of breaths she had to take to keep from crying, her own fingers hopping from each one of his, like a child learning to count to ten. "And I... suddenly I realized that... that the world I'd gone back to... it wasn't my world. It... it was her world; her family, her job, her life, not mine. I... I was just... trying to fill her shoes. I... I never... never belonged there."

He threaded his fingers through hers, stopping her nervous moving, squeezing gently when she stopped to meet his eyes. Tears glistened in her own, unshed tears that spoke volumes to what she'd tried to convince herself of. A moment passed between them, before she reached up, taking his head in her hands and kissing him again. He tasted the salt of her tears, drinking in the sadness. She nudged her nose against his, before curling into his chest, tucking her head under his chin. They sat in silence for several minutes before,

"Her whole world had been taken from her, her life, everything she knew, everyone she loved- she'd been forced to leave it all behind to come to Eureka, and it'd turned her bitter and angry. She didn't know how to handle it. The one bright spot in her miserable existance here was when Evan would come to visit- but those were few and far between; she probably wouldn't have been able to hide her secret for much longer." Zane pulled away to look down at her.

"Secret? What secret?" Jo took a deep breath, swallowing before,

"She was pregnant. With their second child and... and she suffered a miscarriage and... lost the baby. It was eating her up inside- losing everything she knew, and then to lose the one thing that kept her connected with her family a million miles apart... she turned inward, instead of turning for help. It wasn't her fault that her child didn't survive enutero. It was all the stress, it cost her the one thing that kept her grounded; kept her from leaving." Zane nodded, beginning to understand that there was a reason behind his adversary's cold brown eyes.

"What about you?" She looked up at him.

"I..." She took a deep breath, playing with his fingers again. "I realized that... that world... something was missing from it for me." She met his eyes. "You. No matter if Evan looks and sounds like you, Zane, he's not you." She reached up, taking his face in her hands. Their eyes locked, a thousand emotions passing between the two before she leaned close and whispered three little words Zane had longed to hear from her for years. "I love you, Zane."