Eureka The Moon and Back

After clash of titans

_Jo POV_

"Oh, I love Weddings!" cried Warren Hughes.

Henry's Garage was decked out in white tulle and fairy lights. Small, tables draped in white had appeared, laden with flowers and champagne and finger sandwiches. At Hughes' cry, the smiling, happy guests shifted themselves into a rough semi-circle. Grace and Henry took their places in front of Dr. Hughes.

Hughes beamed around the room. "We gather tonight to celebrate Henry and Grace."

Standing next to Zane, Jo let Hughes's words of welcome washed over her, carrying her off to a place of happy endings and love conquering all.

"A couple whose love transcends time."

If only he knew, she thought, blinking furiously as she reminded herself not to tear up. Why on earth did hope and promise for the future always make her want to cry, anyway?

Henry and Grace slipped their wedding bands back onto each other's fingers, their smiles the brightest thing in the room.

Dr. Hughes's unexpectedly resonant voice rolled on, "They're here to renew their vows. With respect for the past, joy in the present…"

Jo couldn't help looking up at Zane, who was looking back at her with a small, encouraging smile.

"And commitment to the future. Together, forever."

Dr. Hughes must have performed more weddings than Jo had guessed. The phrases of a simple, traditional liturgy were familiar and unforced as he asked Grace and Henry each in turn to pledge anew to love and honor and cherish the other, now and forever. He asked for no praise and referenced no deity – a relief in this very secular town – though Jo knew that Allison, Henry and Grace all attended the small chapel from time to time, just as she did.

In another version of her life, she would have been securely wrapped in Zane's embrace during this moment. In this version, he was standing so close she could feel his presence with nearly every cell, but they didn't actually touch. The ache over that was complex. A painful memory of loss, a reminder that they were still alive, and a hope that they might have a chance for their own happy ending. What was it Zane had said? That it was impressive that Henry and Grace had made their relationship work out? Despite all the turmoil and heartache of the shifting timelines? He had to be thinking of her and him, too, right?

Then the brief ceremony was over, sealed with a kiss. The happily and newly married, or re-married, depending on perspective, couple turned to face their friends. Jo thought they both appeared to be more or less completely blissed out from sheer delight. Everyone watching broke into spontaneous cheers and applause.

Jo glanced over and exchanged beaming smiles with Holly, Doug, and Vincent. They looked nearly as thrilled for Henry and Grace as she felt. She turned her head, hoping to make eye contact with Jack. She knew that he had to be practically on cloud nine, and she wanted to acknowledge the moment with him. He loved an elaborate, romantic gesture as much as anyone she knew, however much he would have denied it in public, and Henry was one of his closest friends.

He was standing close to Allison, almost clinging to her. Jo frowned and looked more closely. They were nearly rigid with tension, their eyes shiny with anguish and their tremulous smiles forced as they watched Henry and Grace laugh with joy. Jo realized to her horror that something had gone terribly wrong.

Warren Hughes and the IA 248 filing. It had to be. That little weasel! He must have actually denied their request for an approval for their intimate alliance. Despite everything he'd seen today, too!

Which meant Jack and Allison now faced the impossible choice between one or both of them resigning from GD, or breaking things off between them.

Neither. That was Jo's immediate, indignant decision. After watching Jack moon over Allison, and Allison moon back, for nearly four long years, there was no way Jo was going to allow any break up to happen. Not on her watch. Nor would they loose their jobs.

Outrage mounting, a litany of past high profile couplings at Eureka running through her head, she touched Zane's arm and muttered that she would be right back. Then she headed for Hughes.

She wouldn't cause a scene, undoing in an instant everything lovely she'd accomplished for Henry and Grace, but she could hustle Hughes out as quickly and quietly as possible. Let Jack and Allison focus on Henry and Grace tonight. There was an appeal process; things were not yet at such a pitch that immediate heroic action, such as breaking all of Warren's fingers, was called for.

Fortunately, she'd asked Hughes's driver, a member of her security team, to wait. Hughes had to get to Portland in time for the red-eye flight to Washington and she hadn't wanted him to worry. Now she was just glad she could banish him so easily.

Warren was chatting amicably with the happy couple at the center of things. She gently eased him away, reminding him of his flight schedules. He shook hands with everyone one more time, including a brief and apparently sincere exchange with Jack and Allison. He assured them it had been a pleasure to meet them and he wished them all the best.

One look at Jack and Allison's pained expressions, and Jack's faintly murderous glare, and Jo wanted to gouge out Hughes's eyes and rip out his tongue. She did neither. She didn't even slam the door of the SUV on Warren's horrid, troll-like self. She kept her smile firmly in place as she waved him away, letting it slip only after the tail lights of the big black vehicle disappeared around the bend. Then she vented her outrage by kicking the dirt and swearing venomously under her breath.

Once she'd finished telling the old gas pump everything that was wrong with Hughes's ancestry, in great detail, she took a deep breath and focused on calming herself down. "Steady on, Jo. Happy face now," she muttered.

She shivered out her shoulders and her arms, rolled her neck, smoothed her hair and resettled her jacket. Only then, with a cheerful expression fixed firmly on her face, did she head back inside.

Someone, Vincent, or possibly Doug, had switched up the music in her absence. Eighties pop filled the air, the Pointer Sisters belting out _Jump For my Love_. Grace and Henry had joined their guests and Vincent was pouring out and passing around the champagne. Congratulations and cheerful banter swirled around them.

"To Henry and Grace!" Vincent cried, once everyone had a drink in his or her hands. "Long life and happiness to you both!"

Clinks and fresh cheers rose up around them, while Henry and Grace flushed and laughed with pleasure.

Fargo picked up a fork and started clinking his flute, chanting, "Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss!"

With one of his marvelous, infectious laughs, Henry obliged. He dipped his wife into a deep embrace and then kissed her with a loud smack. Jack signaled his approval with a piercing wolf whistle, which made everyone laugh again.

Jo hovered on the outskirts of the group, trying to decide what, if anything, she should say to Jack when Allison raised her voice to call out, "And congratulations to Zane on his pardon!"

Another round of clinks and cheers followed, this time with Zane grinning and ducking his head in pleased surprise to be singled out and acknowledged.

With her voice deliberately pitched above the music, Allison continued, "I heard from Senator Wen late this afternoon. She would like you to know you are now officially eligible for the Astreaus Mission, and she'd very much like you to submit your name for consideration. Speaking for myself, I really, really encourage you to do it. The mission needs you, Zane. Needs your knowledge and your skills!"

Allison stepped over to him, held out her hand and smiled the way only she could do, warm and sincere and encouraging all at once.

Zane fumbled awkwardly with his own half-full champagne flute, finally setting it down on a small table behind him, and took Allison's hand. He looked quite stunned. Jo couldn't tell if it was because of Wen's message or Allison's praise or the public nature of the surprise announcement of Allison and Wen's open support and backing.

Before he could say anything, Holly was chiming in with an enthusiastic, "Yes, absolutely! You really should be in contention for a slot on the crew. The FTL drive is as much your work as Doug's or Henry's. You should definitely apply to be part of the first major project to test it on a live mission."

She'd hardly finished speaking before Grace, Henry and Doug were following up with their own hearty endorsements.

Doug rambled on about how everyone knew that Zane had already aced all the necessary tests and anyway he was way more qualified than most of those other yahoos applying. "Present company excepted, of course," Doug flushed and added as his glance skittered from Grace to Holly to Jo.

Jo snorted fondly. Fargo had grown up so much recently that these little remnants of the socially clueless geek he used to be were oddly comforting. He was still the same person after all. Maybe, underneath, they were all still the same people.

Distracting them from Fargo's minor embarrassment, Henry clapped his hand on Zane's shoulder and declared that as mission control he knew he'd feel better if more of the original FTL drive engineers were on board the Astreaus.

When she could fit in a word edgewise Grace insisted that Zane's leadership would be a huge advantage to the entire project. Jo felt her eyebrows rise at that one, even as she knew that Zane had actually been more or less running IT for months now and Grace wasn't kidding. Or wrong. In another lifetime, he'd run an entire unit at GD, and run it well.

Jo looked at Jack, who was at her elbow, and grinned. "I think he's finding his place. Again."

Jack smiled back, his own problems temporarily put aside. "He just needed to be asked. I can't figure out why our other selves never figured that out."

Jo let her gaze settle back on Zane, feeling all puffed up with pride on his behalf. His accomplishments and abilities had never been in any doubt, but somehow in this timeline too many other things overshadowed them: felony convictions, prison time, General Mansfield's looming disapproval paired with his vast expectations, Zane's own bad attitude, her previous self's lack of sympathy, all that and more. It was wonderful to see all of that fading away. To see him assuming the place in Eureka and in GD that should have been his all along.

The skin across his cheekbones was flushed with pleasure, embarrassment, and she realized with a ripple of unease, a growing touch of panic. He'd backed up enough from the small crowd pressing in on him that he was trapped against one of the random pieces of equipment she and Vincent had draped with tulle and white Christmas lights. His shoulders were drawing up and his eyes had gotten so wide she could see the whites. While he still nodded and smiled politely at the people hemming him in, his gaze was darting around, almost but not really comical in a frantic search for a polite exit. Then he dropped his hands from his pockets and shuffled around until he was balanced up on the balls of his feet, everything in his posture screaming that he was getting ready to fight or flee. Fight to flee, most likely.

She abruptly remembered him saying, just this afternoon, that he preferred private parties, small and quiet. She'd assumed it was merely another come-on. Because, Zane! And he was always great with groups! At least, and her frown grew with her concern, when he wanted to be. When he was performing the role of his choice. Class clown. Sleazebag-in-chief. Rebel with an attitude. Lead scientist. Sometimes all of them at once. But never, not since the time shift, never just himself.

When he said he liked small parties, she realized now, he was speaking authentically about his own, very real preferences.

This crowded, friendly, faintly pressured scene was all too much, too fast.

She wormed her way to his side, took his arm and got between him and the rest. She said with a laugh, "Hey! Give him a chance to breathe, you guys! He just signed the paperwork this morning!"

Their friends variously chuckled or ducked their heads, but they stepped back and Jo was able to tow Zane away, headed straight for the door. He needed space and privacy to get his head back together. He started to resist, she felt him lean back, ready to break away, but she tightened her fingers and sped their steps.

Once they were outside, she moved away from the lights and steered him into a quiet shadow. The noise of the party behind them faded as the door banged closed.

"Breathe," she said.

He nodded and took a deep, shuddering breath.

The night sounds were audible now; the gravel scraping under their feet, a car in the distance, a muffled shout of laughter from the shop behind them. The tree frogs were especially noisy in the cool, still night air. She faced him, her hands rubbing his upper arms, comforting she hoped, but also because she was afraid to let go of him.

With another slow exhale his shoulders finally settled back into more normal lines.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Yeah," he managed a weak grin, "that was…" he waved his hand helplessly, not finding the words. He dropped his arm and hooked his thumbs in his pockets. His shoulders hunched again, but this time just in awkwardness and uncertainty. "Unexpected," he concluded.

She slid her hands to his chest and started playing with the edges of his flannel shirt, smoothing them down, touching him without holding on. "Not used to being wanted, yet, are you?"

"No. Not here. Not…" he shrugged again and trailed off. After a beat he said, "Thanks."

Jo heard the unspoken 'anywhere' and her heart did a funny little flip-flop.

She'd known, of course, that he'd been begging her to ask him to stay, earlier today. When he finished signing the forms that made him a free man again and started going on about how he could leave at any moment and they might never see each other again. He wasn't being terribly subtle, nor, in his defense, was he trying to be.

She just couldn't bring herself to say the words. She wasn't ready to be responsible for his decision, or give him any excuse to avoid owning his own choices. Or to imply commitments she wasn't sure she could keep. That wouldn't be fair to either of them. She desperately wanted him to stay, of course. Wanted him to want to stay. Wanted to throw herself into his arms and beg him to never leave her again.

It was an impossible promise for him to make in any case. Eureka being what it was.

But she could do better than just silently fucking him on every available surface in her office, hoping that would be enough. Hoping that he'd somehow manage to deduce from that what she really wanted from him. A tall order to be sure, when even she herself didn't know.

She'd always believed that she wanted marriage and a family. She'd believed that since she was a little girl. But it had always been a hazy future thing. Coming somewhere after growing up, achieving career success and before retirement. Right up until the day Zane asked her to marry him and she froze in panic, shocked speechless when the distant future had suddenly arrived all unannounced at her feet. By the time she'd untangled her tongue, he was gone. Slipped away into an unwritten past and exchanged for a harder, darker, warier version of himself.

Did she want that future with this Zane? Could he even make that promise and live up to it? He could be such a jerk. He was an irresponsible genius with strong narcissistic tendencies and only slight regard for consequences. What did he know of commitment or stability? He'd nearly flailed his way out of a circle of supportive, encouraging friends just now. What might he do if she cornered him too soon with talk of love and marriage and babies?

"I think you should put your name in for the Astreaus mission," she said, her hands still on his chest, feeling his heart beating faster than normal as he waited to hear her words. She looked up and held his gaze. "But only if you want it, because I think they'll take you. They need you on that mission. You and Fargo both, you're the ones who built the drive. Understand it. Understand where it really comes from. What it can do. How – and more important – why it works. They'd be crazy not to take you. And I don't think they're crazy."

He held her gaze for a long moment, testing her words against some internal scale. Then he leaned closer to murmur, "Is that your way of asking me to stick around?"

She thought carefully about how to answer this. She wanted to give him the reassurance he was asking for without offering or promising more than either of them could bear right now. She settled on half-truth, and reached up to straighten his collar. "Yes. It is. If I make the mission team – I definitely want you to be part of it, too. Because then I'll believe we'll all make it home again."

He straightened back up, but didn't step away or pull his hands free from his pockets. With a crooked smile, laughter in his voice, and, she was certain, approval mixed in with the disappointment in his expression, he said, "Nice save, Lupo."

She finally felt like she could drop her hands without risking him vanishing immediately into the darkness. "Don't you want to go to Titan after all? You seemed awfully sure of it before."

"Yeah. Kinda." He shrugged and looked away from her, his lips twisting with emotions she couldn't quite read. Desire, certainly. Ambition. Doubt. Indecision. Fear, maybe? A hint of contempt? For being wanted? How did that phrase go? Wouldn't want to join a club that would actually have me? "I don't know anymore," he said at last. Completely honest, that she was sure.

She thought about his panicky expression when their friends were circling him a moment ago. Remembered that until this morning, he'd been a felon on parole. A felon who had spent nearly a year in prison. Not the worst of the federal penitentiaries, but not the easiest either. She'd wondered a lot about his time there. Tried to map the changes in his body, in his spirit, to his time in that alien universe. He didn't volunteer any information, however, and she couldn't find the words to ask. About things like his new feelings about crowds, for example.

His parole was also much closer to a work-release than actual parole. A work-release that limited his range of motion to the area inside the EM shield. He could be sent back to prison for anything or nothing at all, had lived all his time in Eureka on a very, very short leash. Barely tolerated by the community rather than actually wanted for most of it too.

Now he was free to go and, for the very first time, being strongly encouraged to stay. Because of his work. The thing that really mattered the most to him, in the end. She raised her brow and smiled sympathetically. "Overwhelming?"

He let out a huff of surprised laughter. "Yeah. It is." He looked at her and made a rueful face. "A lot more than I expected."

Intuition she had learned to trust these last months led her to say what was, in hindsight, obvious, "The bars had gotten familiar, hadn't they?"

"Yeah," he said again, and shivered, shaking away ghosts, she guessed. "Safe. Reliable."

Keeping others out as well as him in, she finished inside her own head. "Did you have any idea where you might go?"

"None. Everywhere." He shook his head, mocking his own earlier declarations. "Nowhere."

"So," she reached for him again, telling herself it was for him but knowing it was for her. She slid her hands under his flannel shirt and around his waist to twist her fingers in his tee shirt, "Baby steps, then?"

"Baby steps?" He raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Not really my style, Lupo."

"Maybe it's time to try something new?" she offered.

"Yeah, maybe," he agreed, still sounding doubtful. He stared thoughtfully at her for a minute, then said again, "Baby steps, huh?"

"Yes!"

He cocked his head at her, and then settled his own hands on her hips, pulling her slow-dance close. In his most flirtatious tone, he asked, "Want to drive to Klamath Falls and see a first run movie this weekend? Make out with me in the back row?"

Jo knew her heart shouldn't leap with elation. Not over a single movie date to a battered, small-town cinema nearly an hour and a half distant. She'd been sleeping with him for months already, for heaven's sake!

But leap it did. Right over the rising moon.

"Yes," she grinned up at him. "I'd like that."

He smiled a relieved looking smile, then bent and kissed her lightly. Once, twice, but before anything more heated emerged, headlights and then the sound of a car slowing to turn and pull in made them step away from each other.

It was Dr. Leonardo and her partner, along with two other colleagues of Grace's. Jo had invited more of Henry and Grace's friends from the community for the reception part of the celebration, trying to find a balance between small and intimate, and including plenty of their friends and well-wishers. They were popular and well liked and she wanted to respect that. A second set of headlights coming around the bend heralded another arrival.

As she and Zane headed back inside to a party growing louder by the minute, she looked up at him and impulsively asked, "Were you really serious about leaving Eureka? Or just looking for an excuse to get laid at work?"

He paused and looked down, "Honestly?

She made an incredulous face at him. "Yeah?"

"Yes," he said, and winked at her. Then he slung his arm around her shoulders and pulled her through the doorway.

* * *

_Authors note, October 2014:_

_I revised and edited this story, smoothing out some rough bits that nagged at me, and I hope, responding to some of the (lovely!) comments that I received. In particular, I attempted to show more clearly how and why I thought Zane might, in this particular instance, find himself a bit overwhelmed by all that is going on in his life. His ability to roll with life is so taken for granted sometimes, but I thought that, yes, even Zane Donovan (!) could find his equilibrium shaken. From time to time, for sufficiently life altering things. That's part of what I wanted to explore in this fic._


End file.

Eureka