Crash.

Jo jerked awake at the sudden, loud noise, heart racing – what the – she rolled over, one arm reaching for Zane, but the other side of the bed was empty. She squinted at the clock on her bedside table.

6:50. That didn't make sense, either.

"Zane?" Jo called. She rolled over, slipping her feet out of the light summer sheets and onto the carpet. Putting on her slippers, she shuffled her way towards the door to their living room, faintly annoyed to be awake just ten minutes prior to her alarm. Before she could pull the door open and step through, however, it opened for her. Zane popped his head around the doorframe.

"No, no, no, get back in bed!" He insisted, holding up a hand to stop her in her tracks. "Breakfast is coming to you today." Jo narrowed her eyes, but stepped back toward the bed.

"Why?" She asked.

"I like my guinea pigs well-fed," was all Zane said as he vanished through the door. Jo frowned, though it was laced with amusement.

"Now what's that supposed to mean?" She called after him. He reappeared in the doorway with a grin, a baby, and a very carefully balanced breakfast tray.

"I take it you haven't read your email yet?" He asked as he approached the bed. Jo snorted as he placed the tray on her lap and shifted Claire in his arms.

"I'm barely even awake," she pointed out as he handed her Claire. She propped her daughter on the pillows, cradled against her side. "Hey baby girl," she said, running her hand over the dark curls covering Claire's head. "You being good for Daddy?" She asked, glancing up at Zane, who was perched on the edge of the bed. He flashed her a smile.

"She's fed, changed, and ready to go," he informed her, then glanced at his watch and frowned. "I have to get to work," he admitted, pushing off the bed and standing up. "Big day ahead." He glanced at Claire. "Do you want me to take her?" He asked. Jo smiled down at the little girl.

"We'll be just fine, won't we Claire-bear?" Zane nodded and headed for the door before pausing in the doorway, giving her a wry smile.

"Check your email, would you?" He reminded her, before vanishing through the door. Jo looked back on her daughter, snagging her wrist when she caught her reaching for a syrup-covered pancake.

"I guess it's just you and me now, huh baby girl?" Claire's head tilted up to look at her mother, her tiny pink mouth hanging ajar and her eyes wide. Jo smiled and pressed a kiss to her daughter's forehead before turning back to her pancakes.

Jo did eventually check her email, and so it was that she breezed into Zane's current lab about five minutes early for the morning's demonstration. Zane glanced up briefly as the door to the lab slid open.

"You're here earlier than I expected," he said, turning his gaze back down to the control panel. Jo shook her head and smiled.

"You don't get to pretend that you're not excited about this!" She said, shaking a finger at him. "This is huge, why didn't you tell me?" She asked him as she settled into the chair by the computer station. Zane shrugged off her question as he started fiddling with the computers behind her.

"Hey, if it keeps at least one of us from getting blown up or electrocuted or shot into space, that's what matters." He told her. Jo twisted in the chair to look at him.

"That's so sweet," she said, half sardonic and half sincere.

"Well, one of us has to raise the little rugrat," he murmured. Jo frowned and opened her mouth to say something, but he leaned forward to press a kiss to the corner of her mouth, and Jo's arms rose to cup the back of his head almost of their own accord. Behind them, another sliding door swished open.

"D'oh! - I could come back, if you need another minute - or longer." Zane pulled away, and Jo winced - it had been about six weeks since the incident with the neurolinguistic programming, but things between she and Carter had been a little... uncomfortable... since then, to say the least.

"It's fine, Carter," she said. "Zane was just about to tell me all about the - PALs?" She asked. Zane gave her a short nod of confirmation. Fargo followed Carter through the door.

"Okay, people, I have interviews starting in five minutes, so let's get this show on the road."

"Not until after you and I meet with the new DOD Liaison," Jo reminded him sharply.

"Okay, okay," Carter interceded, settling himself on the nearest chair and crossing his arms. Fargo glanced at Jo.

"Well, the need for heightened security around the Astraeus mission requires the most advanced law enforcement technology Global Dynamics can offer." He nodded at Zane. "Zane, show them the hardware." Zane grabbed a small metal case from its location perched on the tray extension of Jo's chair.

"Meet my PALs. Predictive algorithm lenses - think of them as an early warning security system, predicting problems before they happen." Jo raised her eyebrows.

"Like a weather forecast for trouble," she said thoughtfully. Carter tried to restrain a grin.

"Partly cloudy with a chance of global catastrophe," he said. Jo smiled, amused, but he had a point. She looked back at Zane, who'd practically cackled at Carter's joke. He was very nearly giddy, his grin crinkling the corners of his eyes into future laugh-lines. Jo watched him make a visible attempt to reign himself in, her lips twisted with rueful fondness. He leaned in close, peering at her eyes intently.

"Alright, relax," he instructed her, as he positioned the delicate looking instrument over her eyes. Jo didn't flinch, her eyes fixed steadily on Zane. There was a flash of light, and then he was stepping back to give her space. "Locked and loaded," he said, eying her carefully, but Jo was busy processing the digital overlay before her eyes. Lights flickered where there were none, and streams of numbers wove past her eyes.

"Whoa. What is all this?" She asked, pushing herself off the chair to get a better look around.

"The PALs scan and analyze potential safety and security risks, then they play the outcomes in live action and give you a variable timeframe for it to become reality." Jo barely heard him as she tried to process the multitude of readings she was getting from the PALs.

"Jo?" Zane's voice broke into her train of thought, and she realized all three men were staring at her. "Why don't you tell us what you see?" Zane suggested. Jo frowned, doing another sweep around the room.

"Well… the wiring in the electroculogram recorder - it has a short circuit and it needs to be fixed," she started, reading the overlay. Zane started moving back to Carter, and Jo's eyes followed him reflexively. "Wait, I'm getting something else..." Jo's lips twitched with half amusement, half annoyance as the display flickered through Zane's so-called aliases to his criminal charges, and then a psychological report.

Narcissistic tendencies: 68.03% Hmm. She'd swear that number had been higher the last time she'd seen it in her reports.

" What, something you like?" Zane teased when he caught her looking at him, though there was an uncertainty in his tone that suggested he knew exactly what the system had on him. Carter jumped in at the first hint of flirtation.

"Okay then! Zane, don't you think calculating every risk in Eureka is impossible?" he argued. Zane smirked.

"Not if you have a big enough hard drive." He sounded positively gleeful as he bounded onto the platform, like a child with a shiny new toy, which somehow gave Jo a bad feeling about the whole thing. "Thanks to a few hundred gallons of thermal displacement fluid, my PALs' quantum processor can handle anything." He typed a few things into the control panel on the platform before hanging over the railing to look back at the small group.

"So - the lenses can handle the human factor?" Fargo asked curiously.

"Sure," Zane said. "I mean, heart rate, perspiration, adrenaline - they'll actually quantify physiological response and emotional states as well as physical movements." He gestured at Carter. "Alright, chief, you're up."

Carter actually backed up an inch.

"Nah, I don't like stuff getting...stuck in my eye, I like, y'know, sight, and instincts, and - I'm a real cop, not like - " Fargo snorted a little next to him. Jo seconded him, though she knew where Carter was coming from. If it weren't Zane's project, she might've had second thoughts herself. Still -

"Real cop?" She gave him a look.

"I'm a real cop!"

"Seriously?" Jo smirked. 'Real cop,' she mouthed at Zane, before her cell went off. Zane grinned at Carter, the self-satisfied grin of a man who knew where he'd be sleeping that night.

"Lupo," she greeted easily, and listened to the voice on the other end of the line for a moment before she replied. "Thanks, Ryan, we'll be right there." She snapped her phone shut and turned to Fargo.

"The DOD liaison is here," she told him, then paused and turned to Carter. "You should join us, Carter. He might like to meet a real cop." Carter's face fell.

"You're going to be like this, are you?" He asked gloomily, not really expecting an answer.

"Clearly," she shot back at him.

"See you later, Jo," Zane said, turning back to his control panel.

"You, lunch, Cafe Diem, don't forget!" She said, turning back to point at him accusingly. "Your daughter will be expecting you." Zane gave her a brilliant smile.

"Well, if Claire wants me there..." He teased.

"I suppose even I could find some use for you," she said, her tone more than a little suggestive, before the doors slid shut behind her and Zane returned his attention to the control panel, a small smile lingering on his lips.

Carter didn't end up joining them after all, however, as Jo received a second call, this time involving a harassment complaint from Parrish's lab. Jo was all too happy to send him in her place. Outside, Jo and Fargo watched as a member of the DOD's fleet of private jets touched down on the runway at GD.

"So you don't know anything about this guy?" Jo asked.

"Nothing," Fargo confirmed. "It wasn't even Mansfield I spoke to when we confirmed. I haven't seen much of him since the fiasco with the EMD, actually. I'm starting to think he may be in more trouble for that one than we thought." For a moment he fell silent. "Jo," he said finally, "if this is us getting caught between the Senate and the Department of Defense - " But Jo wasn't listening. Her eyes were like dinner plates as she watched the figure disembarking from the jet.

"Jo?" Fargo enquired hesitantly.

Daniel Lupo strode across the tarmac, luggage trailing from both arms.

"Daniel," Jo greeted, stunned. He grinned.

"Hey big sis." Jo punched his arm.

"Ow," he grunted. Fargo stepped back nervously.

"You jerk! I talked to you on the phone two days ago and you didn't say a word!" Jo scolded him. He gave her a sheepish smile.

"Surprise?" Jo crossed her arms over her chest. "Well, I suppose I can just hop back on the plane and tell the Department of Defense it's no-go - " Jo narrowed her eyes at Daniel.

"Don't make me hit you again," she warned him. "You hungry? I'm supposed to meet Zane for lunch with your niece in - oh - about a half hour."

"I could eat."

"Well, then, let's grab lunch, and I can get you settled in."

The moment they stepped into the atrium of GD, they were confronted with a line of people that nearly stretched out the front door.

"The interviews," Fargo groaned.

"Dr. Fargo!" A frazzled looking Holly bolted across the floor. Daniel actually took a step back in alarm, and Jo bit back a smile as she remembered who lived in the other half of the duplex they had arranged for the incoming DOD liaison.

"Holly - Dr. Marten - I'm so sorry, I should have called. I was just welcoming Mr. Lupo to the facility." He explained hastily. Holly's gaze had transferred to Daniel, but at 'Mr. Lupo' her eyes darted quickly to Jo and back at Daniel again.

"Oh." Holly said. "Well, hello." She beamed at him and dropped an odd little curtsey. "Are you..." She trailed off helplessly.

"The new liaison for the Department of Defense," he filled in for her. "And Jo's baby brother." Holly giggled.

"There doesn't seem to be anything terribly 'baby' about you to me," she said brightly. Fargo made a choked noise, and Jo raised an eyebrow at her brother.

"High praise," she said drily.

"We should go," Fargo said hastily, looking as if he wanted to drag Holly bodily to his office. Jo stifled a laugh as the two of them went off in the opposite direction. The laugh she had just managed to hold in came bursting right back out when Carter made a shamefaced walk across the atrium, dripping with unidentifiable slime. Daniel, and several of the candidates in line for interviews, stared.

"Do I want to know?" Jo asked, not even bothering to hide her amusement.

"Parrish," Carter complained, teeth chattering, as if that explained everything - which, actually, it sort of did - and squelched past her, shivering violently. Jo frowned after him, but assumed he had sense enough to get himself to the infirmary.

"What on earth...?" Asked Daniel, who, in spite of having spent a number of months prior in Eureka, had not accumulated much first-hand experience of goings-on at GD. Jo's restricted duty had started long before his arrival, so he'd experienced the handful of real Eureka disasters from the distant perspective of the uninvolved. He'd seen the daily workings of GD even less. Jo gave him a pitying smile.

"You'll get used to it."

Daniel's new duplex was painted a classic white, the only splash of color coming from the cherry red door and shutters. There was a small porch in the front, shared between the two sides. Jo declined to mention who she'd last escorted to the building. After all, turnabout was fair play.

Using her access code, she keyed Daniel into the system, stepping back so he could make a retinal scan. When he was finished, there was an audible click as the deadbolt pulled into the door. Jo turned the knob and led the way.

The layout of the duplex was simplistic, the living room, bedroom and bathroom to the left, the kitchen and office space to the right. Like most of the houses in Eureka, it had been pre-furnished in advance.

Jo nodded at Daniel's suitcase.

"Is that it?" She asked. Daniel gave her a sideways look.

"Yeah, of course it is. You've really been domesticated, haven't you?" Jo scowled at him and turned away. It was true, of course, though still hard for even her to believe. She and Daniel had grown up accustomed to being shuffled from place to place, and packing light. When she was younger, her mother had always made the effort to transform every new base into home - but Daniel hadn't even had that.

Jo shrugged uncomfortably and busied herself with smoothing out a bump in the rug that the PALs indicated was a tripping hazard.

"Dad's looking forward to seeing you," Daniel said casually, a glint of mischief in his eyes. Jo spun around so quickly she almost tripped on the rug anyway.

"He what?" She squeaked. Daniel blinked at her guilelessly.

"For the wedding," he clarified. Jo let out a gusty sigh of relief, her heart still pounding. "You know, the one you still haven't set a date for."

Jo gave him a resentful look as her heart rate slowed to normal.

"We've been kind of busy," she pointed out, feeling slightly wistful. "Claire hasn't left us much time for wedding planning." She smoothed down her suit jacket unnecessarily and changed the subject.

"We should get back to GD, if you're ready. I can show you to your new office." Daniel screwed up his face with distaste.

"An office job," he said, with a disgruntled look at his bad leg. Jo gave him a wry smile.

"Somehow I doubt you'll spend much time there," she said.

Jo and Daniel arrived back at GD to find the atrium more crowded than ever. Half the people were milling about, while the other half were in line for the Director's office. The line was divided mostly between people who looked like they'd had twelve cups of coffee, and people who looked likely to pass out. Jo groaned inwardly. Nervous, ambitious scientists and a once in a lifetime opportunity to go to space. Eureka's perfect storm. At least she had the PALs...

...which were drawing her attention to the altercation between Parrish and Dr. Dillon, across the atrium.

"You think your work is more important than mine, Dillon?"

"I don't know, I'll let you know when I get to Titan, slug boy."

Jo swore when she saw the PALs reading: Volatile Threat Detected. Daniel gave her a concerned look.

"Jo, is everything - " but Jo was already racing across the atrium.

"Everybody out!" She shouted. "Doctor Parrish!" She dove just in time to catch Dr. Dillon's magnetoplasma generator. The atrium got eerily silent as Jo pulled herself off the floor.

"What the hell are you doing with a combustible element outside of a secure lab?"

"My thoughts exactly," Parrish said loftily, crossing his arms over his chest. Jo shot him a quelling look. He shut up. Dr. Dillon was white as a sheet.

"I got nowhere with the diagrams. I had to present the real thing," he defended nervously. Jo closed her eyed briefly, trying to maintain her calm.

"Just take this back to the propulsion lab before I have you both redacted."

She walked away, shaking her head. It was the perfect storm, alright, and they had entire months to go yet.

Daniel and Carter were at the other end of the atrium, staring at her. Jo paused mid-step in surprise before she greeted him.

"Carter. What are you doing here?"

"Forget him, what was that?" Daniel protested. Carter beat Jo to the punch.

"Zane's PALs, I assume," he said, looking impressed. Jo grinned.

"So, are you ready to try on a pair of PALs now?" She asked him. Carter raised his eyebrows and looked back at the spot where near-explosion had taken place.

"I think so." He said. Daniel glanced between them.

"Okay, I am clearly missing something here," he said, bewildered. "What does Zane have to do with anything?" Jo cocked her head at him and linked her arm with his.

"Come with us and find out," she told him, her eyes twinkling with barely contained amusement.

Zane did a double take when the trio appeared in his lab.

"What's he doing here?" He demanded.

"What, surprised I could get here without you interfering?" Daniel shot back. Jo spread her hands in a pacifying gesture.

"Daniel is the new liaison for the Department of Defense," she explained. Zane looked unamused.

"He's staying?" He clarified. He crossed his arms over his chest. "I know Mansfield hates me but that's a little petty, even for him."

"Zane," Jo growled warningly.

"Right, right, no fighting with the relatives. You got it, bobcat." He nodded at Daniel. "Welcome back." Daniel gave him and unimpressed look. Zane turned his attention elsewhere.

"Changed your mind about the PALs, Carter?" He asked, smugly. "I knew you'd be back here sooner or later." Carter grumbled something mostly unintelligible about jackasses and shiny new toys. Zane just grinned widely, swinging himself off the platform and directing Carter into the chair in front of the electroculogram.

"For the last time," Daniel complained, "what are pals?" Jo watched amusement as Carter tried and failed not to flinch away from the PALs applicator.

"Predictive algorithm lenses," she said absently, her eyes following Zane's broad shoulders across the lab. He really was in fine form today, all childish enthusiasm for scientific progress. If he were really a kid, he'd probably be too keyed up tonight to sleep. As her entirely adult fiance, well - Jo smiled with a hint of anticipation.

Beside her, Daniel had apparently worked his way through her non-answer of an answer, because he spoke, drawing her back from her thoughts.

"Predictive algorithm - are you saying these things are supposed to tell the future?" He paused. "Wait, that canister - "

" - would have exploded if it hit the ground," Jo finished for him. "I actually saw it happen." Daniel's eyes were hungry when he looked back to Carter, who was blinking and looking around blankly, ostensibly adjusting himself to the PALs overlay.

"That would be an incredible tool for - God, for the armed forces, for law enforcement, for emergency responders everywhere..." He trailed off, staring at Zane. Jo favored him with a wry look.

"You think I don't realize that?" She asked. "But there's a catch." She walked him to the railing and gestured down.

"What the hell is that?" Daniel stared.

"That," said Jo, "would be the hard drive." Daniel was quiet for a moment.

"This town really does take some getting used to," he said finally. Jo laughed.

Carter's voice came from behind, interrupting them.

"All set," he said. Jo turned around and smiled at him reflexively, her eyes wandering to Zane.

"Give us a second, would you?" She asked, and walked past them without waiting for an answer. Zane was studying his tablet.

"Hey," she said, putting a hand on his arm. He lifted his gaze to her, eyes warming immediately.

"Hey, yourself," he said, clicking the tablet off and giving her his full attention. Jo cocked her head.

"Good time for lunch?" She said, eying his now blank tablet. His stomach growled and he laughed good-humoredly.

"Looks like it," he said. Jo ran her arms absent-mindedly up and down the well-defined muscles of his arm and his eyes darkened with interest.

"Too bad your brother's here," he said. "Or it could be a little more intimate." Jo gave him a slightly throaty laugh.

"I don't think Carter could cope if he found us in another lab," she murmured, looking up at him from under her eyelashes. Zane groaned and pulled her closer.

"Forget Carter," he murmured, right next to her ear. "All we need is ten minutes and - "

"You two coming up for air anytime soon?" Demanded the Sheriff in question. Zane straightened up to shoot him a glare.

"Not if we can help it," he snapped back at him. Jo pulled away with a quelling glance at her fiance.

"We were just discussing lunch," she defended as she walked back toward Carter and Daniel, Zane trailing her. Carter gave her a revolted look. "Real lunch," she lied. "We were going to pick Claire up. You could come with?" Daniel nodded his agreement, still eyeballing Zane. Carter made a face.

"Well, I was going to Cafe Diem anyway," he said, sounding annoyed. "So I don't have much of a choice, do I?" Jo smirked at Carter, even as she elbowed Zane in the gut preemptively to stop him from piping in. Behind her, Zane snapped his mouth shut.

"No, you really don't," she said, leaving it up to them to decide whether she was addressing Carter, or Zane.

Vincent was all aflutter when they arrived.

"Mr. Lupo!" He said. "Back so soon?" Daniel gave Jo a helpless look. Her lips twitched into a tiny smirk. Recognizing he would get no rescue from her, he turned back to Vincent.

"Yes?" He tried. Vincent beamed.

"What can I get for you?" He asked. "Filet mignon? A classic mac 'n cheese? Or maybe something a little more daring?"

"A table would be nice," Jo cut in, crossing her arms over her chest. Vincent blinked as if noticing her, and the restless infant in the stroller, for the first time.

"Of course, my apologies, Jo," Vincent assured her. "It's just such a pleasure to have a new palate to cook for."

"Vincent, he spent three months here, he's not that new," she pointed out. Vincent gave her a wounded look.

"Molecular gastronomy is an art, Jo," he told her very seriously, before marching off into the kitchen.

"Good thing he considers himself above spitting in your food," Carter said, amused. She winced.

"I heard that, Sheriff," came floating back from the kitchen, and it was Carter's turn to wince. Jo smirked.

"Looks like it'll be a veggie burger for our 'real cop,'" she mused.

"Yeah, well, maybe he'll give you a real burger," Carter shot back.

"Children, children," Zane mocked. "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." Jo groaned. Daniel eyed the three of them warily, wondering what exactly he had got himself into. The last time he'd been in Eureka, Jo had been tired and worried over the small family he'd been shocked to find her building. The group of friends she seemed to have accumulated hadn't been much different. Now she was easily the happiest he'd ever seen her - almost bubbly - and conversation flowed easily.

He felt out of place.

"Coming?" Jo asked, startling him. Daniel forced a smile.

"Of course," he agreed. Jo smiled at him so widely that some of his tension eased. It was only a small town - full of crazy-ass scientists, that was true, but a small town just the same.

How hard could this really be?

Zane's tablet started beeping a warning halfway through lunch. Jo frowned at him. His attention had only been half-there for the past twenty minutes. It was mildly annoying, but Jo had let it pass. Zane was still a Eureka scientist. His work was his passion, even if he usually managed to balance better than most of the scientists at GD. And this project was obviously a big deal. Still...

"Zane," she said sharply, as the PALs flickered and predicted he would create a disturbance by letting Claire grab at the tablet. He pulled it back just in time and gave Jo a regretful look.

"Sorry," he apologized as he turned his attention back to the tablet. Jo sighed.

"Do you need to get back to the lab?" She asked, trying to be patient with him. His eyes darted to hers.

"You wouldn't mind?" He asked hopefully. She waved a hand to the door and gave him her best attempt at an understanding smile.

"Go," she told him.

"Are you s - "

"Before I change my mind," Jo said.

"Right," he said, placing his tablet on the table and handing over Claire. He stood up and stuffed his tablet into his messenger bag before giving the group around the table an apologetic smile. "Sorry to cut this short," he said. "Got to get back to the lab and check on something." He gave Daniel a short nod of acknowledgment and strode out of the cafe.

"Well that was quick," Carter remarked. Jo gave him a pointed look. "Right. Shutting up now," he said. His eyes drifted past her to the counter and he frowned.

"Oh, come on," he grumbled, before darting out of his seat. Jo's gaze followed him across the room, where she caught only a few split seconds of the PALs overlay before he snatched something from midair, just over Parrish's head. Something that Parrish had clearly been planning on eating, judging from the indignant look on his face. Jo smirked and looked back at Daniel, who looked baffled.

"What was that all about?" He asked.

"Somebody was about to choke," Jo hazarded a reasonable guess. Daniel raised an eyebrow.

"Town full of geniuses and nobody knows how to do the Heimlich?" He asked. Jo shrugged.

"Why choke if you don't have to?" She asked. Daniel looked unconvinced, but any chance at argument was forestalled when Parrish stormed over to Jo.

"Will you please tell that - that authoritarian Neanderthal to leave me alone and let me eat in peace?" He demanded. Jo raised her eyebrows.

"Sheriff Carter is just doing his job, Dr. Parrish," she pointed out calmly. "Maybe you should consider going back to your lab and doing yours instead of causing a scene." Parrish gave her a frustrated look and stormed off, muttering imprecations under his breath.

Jo massaged the bridge of her nose with frustration. They'd built up a sort of tentative truce during her lunchtime visits to the nullweps lab, but Parrish held a grudge over Zane's reckless actions with the PTSD device - a grudge which had probably been intensified when Zane had been given the PALs project. No doubt the events of the day had done nothing to dissuade him.

Jo sighed. Weren't the PALs supposed to make her life simpler, rather than complicating it?

After the incident with Parrish, the mood at the table was subdued. When Jo suggested they wrap things up and get back to GD, therefore, agreement was unanimous. They were on their way to the door of the cafe when Jack and Jo froze, their eyes fixed on the entrance. Daniel stopped behind them.

"Carter," Jo said, her voice low. "Do you see that prediction?"

"Cataclysmic means 'bad,' right?" Jack said, sounding like he already knew the answer.

"A head wound," Jo murmured in front of Daniel. "What happened to him?" Before he could react, Jo tensed in front of him and threw herself over Claire's car carrier. Daniel was still processing that, his head turned to the back of the cafe, when someone tackled him from the side.

Oof.

He hit the ground hard, all the air knocked out of him. To his right, Claire began to cry, badly startled. A moment passed before Daniel felt a weight lift off him and rolled over. Jack was standing over him, looking sheepish, one hand offered to pull him up. Daniel took it, confused and annoyed, and pushed himself off the floor. His leg ached.

"Shh-shh, baby girl," Jo soothed the shrieking baby, now freed from the confines of the car seat. It was less than effective.

"What the hell was that?" Daniel demanded. Jo frowned.

"I don't know, but the PALs said it was 96% certain it will happen in the next couple hours," she said, raising her voice to compete with the volume of Claire's wails. His niece had quite the set of lungs, Daniel reflected.

"The PALs say? What, are we going to jump every time our hugely uncomfortable contact lenses tell us?" Jack asked, and Daniel gave him a grateful look. He'd taken the words right out of his mouth. Well... essentially, anyway.

"Everything they've predicted has happened," Jo shot back. "And Zane - " But before Jo could say anything else, an annoyed looking Vincent stepped in.

"Ah, guys, you're disturbing the customers," he said, giving the wailing baby a pointed look. Jo gave Vincent a pinched-looking smile.

"Sorry," she said, and they hurried out of the cafe. Claire's cries started to die down into little snuffling squeaks as they paused a few feet away.

"Look, I'll tell Zane what we saw," Jo told Jack as she bounced Claire with one hand and manuevered the stroller with another. "He'll be able to isolate the factors that led to the prediction."

"I'll start evacuating Main St." Jack said, looking around at the busy street. The people on the cafe patio were staring. Jo nodded and started to walk away.

"Hey," Daniel said loudly, stopping her in her tracks. "Are you going to tell me what's going on? At all?" He crossed his arms over his chest. Jo turned back.

"Um," she said, and glanced at Jack. "We don't really know?" Daniel stared at them. They stared back.

Daniel sighed.

"Okay, where do you want me?" He asked.

Jo hesitated outside the door to Zane's lab.

She'd returned Claire to the nanny, a youngish woman named Nicole with mousy brown hair and an apparent hero worship of Jo and Zane. The five month old had been more interested in her own fingers than her mother's departure, which suited Jo just fine. She couldn't tear her thoughts away from the images she'd seen in Cafe Diem, or at least not from one image in particular. Zane, with a head wound, walking into the cafe, an explosion racing after him.

She licked her lips nervously and stepped into Zane's lab, only to freeze in confusion when he wasn't there.

"Zane?" she queried.

"Not a good time, Jo-Jo," came Zane's terse, disembodied voice. Jo moved toward the sound and was rewarded with the hint of a foot peeking out from beneath the console. Her lips curled at the edges in spite of the circumstances.

"Zane," she said again, and he must have heard the firmness in her tone, because he popped his head out from beneath the console to eye her.

"What is it?" he asked warily.

"Carter and I got a major reading off the PALs as we were leaving Cafe Diem," Jo explained. Zane frowned.

"The system's offline," he told her, fiddling once more with the bottom of the console, keeping one ear tuned to her. "You shouldn't be getting any readings." Jo shook her head.

"That's the thing," she said, "we haven't had any readings since the cafe." She hesitated. "They predicted an explosion." That drew Zane's attention.

"An explosion?" he asked. "In Cafe Diem?"

"Outside," Jo clarified.

"Did you see direction? Details? Injuries?" Zane turned his attention back to the console momentarily, frowning. Jo hesitated. The gash they'd seen on his forehead might be relevant. On the other hand... as long as Zane remained focused there was a good chance they could prevent the explosion. Knowing about his role in what she'd seen could just as easily throw him off as it could help him.

Jo shook her head.

"It all happened too fast," she said, her eyes flickering to his forehead. "I couldn't catch much." She frowned. "We need the PALs working again."

"Yeah, well, easier said than done," Zane grumbled. "Ever since Carter's PALs went online, something's been overtaxing the system. I was trying to figure out what," he added pointedly.

"Yeah, well, do it fast," Jo said, her tone sharpened by her worry. "We don't have much time."

Zane grinned.

"Now where have I heard that before?" He tapped a finger on his chin in mock-thought. "'Zane, hurry, we don't have much time before the baby wakes up,'?" he suggested. "Or maybe, 'Zane, hurry up and get in- " Jo cut him off without even rising to his bait.

"Just fix the lenses before someone gets hurt," she told him. Zane laughed.

"And if that someone happens to be me, well, who could blame you?" He misinterpreted, shaking his head. From under the console, he didn't see Jo's face go a little gray at the thought. "Slave driver," he accused fondly. "Now move along, woman, I can't work with you ogling me. I'm not a piece of meat, you know."

The best Jo could muster was an obligatory snort before she fled the room. Outside the room she slumped against the wall and looked at her hands, which she'd had clenched around the hem of her jacket. They were shaking.

Jo screwed her eyes shut momentarily, shoving down the panic that she could feel rising in her throat. It would just have to wait. There was still time to turn this thing around, but she couldn't do it if she gave in to fear. After a moment passed, she took a deep breath and opened her eyes. Time to find Carter and Daniel.

Jo was pacing in the atrium when Daniel and Carter made it back to GD.

"About time," she snapped. Carter raised his eyebrows, and, declining to address their timeliness or lack thereof, merely asked, "Did you tell him?"

Jo's shoulders slumped, all the fight taken out of her.

"No," she admitted. "I didn't want to distract him." Carter gave her a wry look.

"Wouldn't want to cause a panic," he agreed, even though they both knew starting a panic was the last thing that Zane, of all people, was likely to do.

"I got a list from Fargo," Jo continued, "All of the people rejected from the Astraeus mission who work with combustible elements. It's not short - "

" - and that's not including all the other things at GD that can go boom," Carter concluded. He sighed. "Did Zane say why the PALs weren't working? They've been on and off like disco lights since we saw the explosion at Cafe Diem." Jo made a face.

"He says the system crashed when your PALs went online, something seems to be overloading the hard drive."

"Well, can you turn his off, then? If it started when they went online, let's take them offline." Daniel suggested.

"Take what offline?" The trio turned to see Fargo and Holly approaching from across the atrium.

"My PALs," Carter explained. "Zane says something is overtaxing the system."

"The PALs are failing? But I - we - " he corrected, "need the PALs!" Fargo looked rattled. Carter rolled his eyes. "Relax, Fargo, we're taking care of it. Go back to your interviews. We'll let you know when the PALs are back online."

"How are the interviews?" Jo asked, giving a suspicious look to the line of scientists shuffling restlessly outside Fargo's office. "Anyone seem...angrier than usual?" Fargo frowned.

"No, why?"

"It's going great," Holly chirped. "Douglas almost has a sixth sense about people, I mean I don't really believe in that kind of pseudoscience of course but he can just read people like a book!"

There was a long silence.

"Can he now?" Carter said, sounding for all the world as if he were fascinated by this news.

"Yeah! It's kind of uncanny," Holly grinned. "Thirty seconds, he just knows. I'm no biologist but he must be smelling pheromones or something."

"Or something," Carter said agreeably. "Well, Douglas, that's impressive." Jo watched Fargo's Adam's apple bob nervously and narrowed her eyes. Fargo cleared his throat noisily.

"Anywho, gotta get back to work, Titan isn't coming to us - "

"Holly, Douglas is going to catch up with you in just a second. Fargo," Carter said pointedly, grabbing one arm firmly and steering him toward the door, "let's go for a walk." Jo turned on her heel and followed, hearing Holly's nervous voice behind her.

"Okay then! I'll just get started alone. With this... long line of people..."

Daniel gave her an awkward smile and a nod before turning and following Jo through the door.

"What's going on?" He muttered to Jo. She gestured vaguely in the direction of the two figures ahead of them, and Daniel watched as the Sheriff manhandled GD's director down the hall.

"Fargo helped himself to a pair of Zane's PALs. That's gotta be what's overloading the system." In front of them, the Sheriff said loudly,

"No wonder you said you needed the PALs working!" Fargo mumbled something more or less inaudible to the pair behind them.

"Could be your sweetie just screwed up." Daniel pointed out, his tone casual. Jo cast her brother an annoyed look.

"Could you just try to get along with him?"

"He doesn't deserve you," Daniel said stiffly.

"I don't remember asking your permission!" Jo snapped, and strode past him, through the door to the elevator.

The group entered the lab to the sound of Zane cursing loudly. Carter grinned.

"Better watch that language around Claire. You would not believe how quickly they go from nonsense to parrot mode."

"I'm sorry, Carter, am I late for daddy day care, or do you have information for me?" Zane snapped.

"Fargo has something to say," Jo said pointedly. Her eyes followed Zane's agitated movement across the lab.

"I may have borrowed a pair of PALs for personal use," Fargo admitted.

"What?" Zane asked, incredulous, his flailing hands almost smashing his tablet into the oculogram monitor. Jo winced as Zane continued. "No wonder the system is crashing, it's only meant to support two pairs at a time!"

"Well, you could have mentioned," Fargo said mutinously. Zane gave him an annoyed look.

"Right, sorry, I guess I failed to anticipate the head of GD stealing experimental technology."

"It's not really stealing if I'm the boss," Fargo muttered. Daniel stared at him.

"That's not how it works," Carter said, looking faintly amused now.

"What on earth did you need them for anyway?" Zane demanded. Fargo set his chin defiantly.

"I needed thorough analysis of our job candidates." Zane threw his hands, tablet and all, into the air, and Jo absently wondered how that tablet had survived so long, between the abuse of its owner and the abuse it was subject to at the hands of their daughter.

"Isn't that your job?" Zane pointed out, before abandoning the argument as pointless. He scowled and ducked under a console in response a sudden series of beeps. The white noise in the room suddenly dropped.

"Well, that's it," Zane said. "The PALs are offline."

"For how long?" Daniel asked, frowning, surprising the other inhabitants of the room. Jo raised an eyebrow.

"I thought you didn't like the PALs." He shrugged.

"Yeah, well, I can't exactly outrun explosions the way I used to."

"Wait, explosions?" Demanded Fargo, his voice rising. "Nobody said anything about explosions!"

"Main Street is about to be leveled, and we needed the PALs to stop it!" Jo snapped at him. Fargo's eyes went wide.

"What the - this is why you wanted that list of applicants? You said that was a preventative measure!"

"And it was. That's what we were trying to prevent!"

"Well, you could have told me."

"Children," Carter broke in calmly. "Zane, how long?"

"No idea," said Zane. "Maybe for good."

"Look, we have no idea that what we saw is going to happen - "

"Carter, Zane could die, and - "

"What?" Zane sat up abruptly in his spot under the console, smacking himself in the head and hissing with pain. "What do you mean, I could die? Jo? You said you didn't see anything!"

Jo and Carter suddenly got very quiet, and Daniel frowned at the look on his sister's face - like she was seeing a ghost. He thought back to what she said in the cafe - "A head wound - what happened to him?" - and turned to look at his putative brother-in-law. A trickle of red had appeared on his brow, and Daniel rose his eyebrows in interest. In a way, it seemed, she had seen a ghost.

"I'll call Allison," Carter said in a low voice. As he stepped away, Jo stepped forward and fished her angry fiancee out from under his console without speaking, dragging him over the nearest chair and retrieving the lab's emergency first aid kit - which was, Daniel noticed, quite possibly the most exhaustive first aid kit he'd seen in his life - he could have sworn he'd seen something in there labeled as a 'nanobot destabilizer.' Both Jo and Zane were silent as she busied herself cleaning the wound on Zane's forehead. It was not a comfortable silence. Daniel caught himself edging away, and glanced desperately at the Sheriff as he finished his phone call.

"She's on her way down," Carter said, breaking the silence. Jo looked up.

"It's not as bad as it looks," she said. "Head wounds bleed a lot. I can bandage it." Carter nodded.

"Do it," he said. "Zane, is there anything you can do about the PALs?"

"With the harddrive down, it could take months to get them back up," Zane said.

"We need more information if we're going to stop whatever this is," Jo said, keeping her eyes fixed on the bandage she was unwrapping. Her voice was subdued.

"Well..." Zane looked thoughtful. "Henry has that immersion system he designed for Titan... some of the programming works under the same principles. If there's anything in GD that could read the data from the PALs, that would be it."

"Great!" Said Carter, his voice falsely chipper. "Do it, and now that Allison's here - " Daniel turned and saw Dr. Blake coming into the room, " - someone can get these things out of my eyes."

Jo, Carter, and Daniel met Henry down in Grace's lab, the furniture of which had been cleared to the edges of the room to allow for greater freedom of movement.

"The PALs keep a digital record of what you see, similar to the DVR on your tv," Henry explained as he set up his imaging device. "These are some of the most complex files I've ever seen, but I've been able to extract some of the data - it's hard to say how much," he said apologetically as the scene began to render. "The PALs software prioritizes certain information over others, and using my system it will still take some time to render."

"Creepy," Jo murmured, watching Cafe Diem build itself around them.

"Seriously?" Daniel said, giving her a sideways look. "Just creepy? This borders on The Matrix level of creepy."

"How flattering," Henry said, deadpan. "I've always hoped to be at the center of an AI rebellion."

"If it happened anywhere, it would be here," Carter said absentmindedly.

Jo sucked in a sudden breath as Zane walked through the door. Daniel was unnerved to note that the simulation had depicted the head wound accurately, right down to the precise length and angle of the bandage.

"I should've told him," Jo said. "I should've warned Zane about what we saw."

"We'll save him," Carter said, gently. She just nodded, and he turned to Henry. "Could you play this back again, but more slowly?"

"Sure," said Henry, and the scene reversed itself. Daniel edged across the room, sidling around the tables even as he knew, rationally, that they were only some kind of hologram. He approached the counter, wincing at the sight of debris, paused in midair as it sailed toward an unsuspecting couple.

"So there was a shockwave before the flames," Carter said behind him.

"Well, the timing between the shockwave and the flame would be a matter of milliseconds," Henry predicted, gesturing between the two levels of the explosion.

"Depends on the point of destination, too," Jo pointed out.

"Crime scenes with the Marshalls would have been a piece of cake with this kind of technology," Carter said, sounding a little wistful, and Daniel turned.

"You were with the Marshalls?" He asked, and Carter turned to him, surprised.

"Well, sure," he said. "Actually, it was really dumb luck that I ended up here,"

"Dumb luck and a delinquent daughter," Jo muttered, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth for the first time since their conversation with Zane. Daniel snorted. That sounded about right.

"You don't even want to know," said Carter, but Daniel could guess. He'd had his moments too, as a kid, at least after Jo had left home. He gestured at the windows, where the street outside could be seen rendering slowly.

"Let's look outside," he suggested.

Stepping out onto the street was the closest Daniel had come to a flashback throughout much of his time in Eureka. From inside the cafe the view had been limited to light and flames, but outside, the street looked much like the war zone Daniel had left. His bad leg ached.

"You good?" Jo asked, in a low voice.

"Fine," he said tightly. "Let's just get this over with."

"Oh, wow," breathed Carter, and they turned to face him. He was staring up the street, and - Daniel immediately saw what he was looking at.

"The explosion didn't start downtown," Daniel said, unnerved. This was destruction on an enormous scale.

"It started at GD," Jo concluded, as the four of them stared. "It's going to wipe out the whole town."

The next step was a large scale evacuation, of course. Jo left Grace's lab in a hurry, the others staying behind to look over the scene and try to pinpoint the cause. She started making calls while still on the move. Fargo and Holly met her in the atrium amidst a flurry of preparation.

"I want all unstable projects secured and all GD personnel evacuated in fifteen minutes," Fargo said briskly.

"We only have twenty," Jo reminded him. He brushed it off.

"That gives us five to spare. Take your security team, do a sweep of the building, make sure nobody gets left behind." Jo nodded.

"Already in process, and they're almost clear," she assured him. That had been included among the series of phone calls she'd made on the trip up from the lab. Her phone beeped and she glanced down. Zane. Jo clung to her composure.

"Zane's almost got the PAL system running again. I'm going down."

"Keep me apprised," Fargo told her, and turned to Holly. Jo turned and strode across the atrium, the steel toes of her boots clicking across the floor.

The trip down to Zane's lab was quick - too quick for Jo, really, even if they were working on a strict time limit. She had no idea what she was going to say to him. "I'm sorry" seemed insufficient. And, possibly, insincere? Did she really regret not telling him? She certainly regretted that he'd found out.

She stood outside the door, took a deep breath, and activated the console.

"Zane? We're running out of time, how close are you?"

"Well, the PAL processor works by maintaining a constant magnetic field," he explained, oddly calm as he sorted through wiring. "When Fargo's lenses overtaxed the system, the field was disrupted." He looked tired. "Should've known better than to make a backup pair, I guess. I'm trying to jump start it with this generator, but it keeps shutting down again."

Jo hesitated.

"Zane - " she began, but he cut her off, though not unkindly.

"Not now, Jo." He said. He finished with the wires, plugging a last one in, and spun around to face the generator, dialing a rapid sequence and punching a final button victoriously. The hard drive below hummed into life.

"You need to take Claire and evacuate with the rest of GD, Jo," Zane said, turning to face her. She stared at him in shock.

"What? No! Look, you're mad, I get it, but you're going to have to find some other way to punish me. This is my job. GD security is my job - "

" - which you're perfectly capable of overseeing from the evacuation center, with the rest of the town. That's what your team is for, Jo - "

" - I'm not some airheaded bimbo you can order around - "

" - I don't want Claire growing up without a mom, Jo!" They both went quiet.

"Fine," she said eventually. "Fine." She turned on her heel and headed for the door, pausing at the threshold. "But Zane? She needs her dad too. I'd better see you with the last evacuation group."

The group in Grace's lab had expanded by one. Daniel watched her curiously - a short, round woman who looked more like a stereotypical bakery owner or chef than the munitions expert she clearly was. Her eyes were greedy as she surveyed the blast scene, frozen in time.

"Remarkable, Henry," she murmured. "Truly remarkable." She gave him a calculating look. "I'll play you for it."

"Play?" The Sheriff asked, curiously. If not for the deep shade of Henry's skin, Daniel suspected he might be blushing.

"Poker," he muttered. "Ah - sorry, Shelly, Astraeus has first crack at it, I'm afraid." Dr. Brown huffed.

"What a waste," she complained. "Empty air and a whole lot of rocks. Who needs it?" Daniel raised his eyebrows. From what he'd heard, Astraeus was the greatest opportunity of the century in the eyes of most of the town. Dr. Brown was the first dissenting opinion he'd heard so far.

"Aw, come on Henry, what harm could it do?" Carter teased. "Too afraid you'll lose?" Henry gave Carter a prim look.

"Stake my ticket to the Astraeus mission on a game of poker with the card shark's daughter? I'll pass." He said firmly. Carter blinked.

"Card shark's daughter?" He repeated. Dr. Brown gave him an unnerving, toothy grin.

"Taught me everything he knows," she said, the southern twang in her voice increasing ever so slightly.

"We don't have much time," Henry reminded them. Dr Brown turned her attention back to the flames.

"Right. Well," she sighed with something that almost seemed like delight. "You and Jo always bring me the best ones, Henry." She ran her fingers through the cool, motionless flame, something like awe in her eyes. "This is a definite Class D."

"Class D?" Carter asked, perplexed.

"Combustible metal fire," Henry said, frowning. Daniel stepped forward.

"What causes metal to combust?" He asked, genuinely curious. This was about as close to his field as they were likely to get here in Eureka. Henry hmmmed to himself.

"On this scale... it'd be a massive thermal meltdown," Henry said slowly, glancing at Carter, whose eyes went suddenly wide.

"The PAL system," he breathed. "Oh, shit."

Dr. Brown watched them go, shaking her head.

"It's always something in this town." She glanced back at the tableau beside her wistfully. "Goodbye, beautiful," she said, and headed for the evacuation zone, whistling.

The run to Zane's lab - fortunately sharing a floor with Grace's - was quick, but unpleasant, and Daniel could feel the strain in his bad leg when they arrived. About halfway there, the alarms began going off, and the three of them burst into the room without much ceremony, the safety protocols having superseded security on the floor.

"Zane!" Carter shouted. "The PALs are predicting their own failure - " he stopped short when he saw Zane leaning over the edge of the main console.

"You don't say," Zane said dryly. Carter, wisely, kept his mouth shut, turning instead to Henry.

"You should go," he said. "Help Fargo and - Jo?" He looked around, somehow surprised by her absence.

"She's with the evacuation team," Zane said, his voice clipped. "She doesn't know what's going on. " Henry nodded to Zane.

"I'll let them know," he said, and turned back to Carter. "Let me know if you need anything else," he said, and was gone.

"We only have a couple minutes left," Daniel pointed out. Zane grimaced.

"The core ran too hot and vaporized the thermal displacement fluid. We're reaching full meltdown."

"Okay, well how do we cool it down?" Carter asked. Zane's forehead creased in thought.

"Well... we could try liquid helium. Except..."

"Except what?" Carter asked.

"It... could maaaaybe trigger a larger explosion."

"Perfect," Daniel snapped; he was tired, sore, and one major explosion per lifetime really seemed more than sufficient. His leg ached. Carter's phone rang.

"Hey Fargo, good to go?" He asked, then - "Does no one understand what evacuate means? I'm on my way." He sighed, and turned to look at Zane. "Look, if you can't stop this - "

"Don't worry, I'll get out." He said, not looking up from his tablet.

"Good. Um - Daniel?" Daniel watched as indecision washed over his face. "Look, if you can get back to the atrium, the security team should - "

"I'm staying here," Daniel interrupted, surprising himself. Carter blinked.

"Oh. Um. Okay - I should - " Daniel nodded, and Carter jogged out. Daniel climbed onto the walkway where Zane stood, to all appearances absorbed in his tablet.

"You should go." Zane said.

"And leave you here? Ha. Jo would kill me."

"Explosions will kill you."

"Been there, done that." It was false bravado. Daniel leaned over the railing, feeling the heat radiate from the overheated core. Without the coolant system, the dry heat was not unlike the Afghani desert.

"I don't need you," Zane snarled. "So fine, whatever, but stay out of my way." That was, more or less, the exact moment that Zane's phone rang. There was a pause.

"Here, take this, I need my hands free," Zane said, digging his phone out of his pocket. Daniel didn't comment, but raised the phone to his ear.

"Sheriff?" he asked. There was a pause, and he said, "Yes, we're still here." He glanced at Zane. "Yes." Another pause. "I'll let him know." Zane looked up, and Daniel, pulling the phone from his ear, said, "The Sheriff says something about piping in dormancy gel?"

"Oh, hell, why not," Zane muttered. He turned back to his console and pulled up a screen, which indeed reflected an incoming cold liquid. "Tell Carter I'll have to reopen the pipes." Daniel relayed this message and for a moment, they waited. "Okay - all clear on both sides." Zane leaned over the edge of the railing, watching the ducts.

They didn't open.

"Where the hell is it?" He demanded.

"We're not getting anything," Daniel said to the phone. He looked up. "The Sheriff - "

"Would you just call him Carter like the rest of the peons?"

" - says it should be there already." Zane swore.

"The system's not responding - I'll have to open that valve manually, from inside the pool, after I bypass the security gate." Zane was still typing as Daniel moved forward. He was halfway to the ladder when Zane looked up.

"What the hell are you doing?" Zane demanded.

"We don't have time for this," Daniel said, grabbing the ladder and turning.

"Man, not to be ableist over here or anything, but you're not exactly in the best shape for acrobatics!" Daniel grunted, lowering himself rung over wrung. His bad leg throbbed.

"Better shape than you, spit up soldier." Daniel shot back as he carefully crossed the gap between ladder and his next foothold - some kind of pipe. He tried not to think of the first degree burns he was almost certainly getting on his hands.

"Bite me!" Zane told him, and then - "Hurry, there's pressure building on that valve." Daniel executed a split that would've made Jo's old dancing teacher proud, stretched, and grabbed the lever.

The steam from the dormancy gel hitting the overheated metal was unbearable, both in temperature and in smell.

"Lupo, get out of there!" He heard from above the hissing waterfall of gel.

"Yeah, about that!" Daniel shouted back, and he realized he was grinning like a madman. "Might be a slight problem!"

There was a muttered curse from above, and then a hand materialized over his head. Daniel lunged for it, and Zane - in spite of Daniel's crack about putting on baby weight - was able to pull him up and out with some small effort. They both tumbled onto the concrete, Zane narrowly avoiding cracking his head on the floor. A moment passed as the two men struggled to catch their breath. Then:

"I still don't like you," said Daniel.

"Well now, coming from a Lupo that's practically a proposal." Daniel grunted and pulled himself up from the floor. Zane didn't bother, instead choosing to fish his phone out of his pocket.

"Zane." Jo answered on the first ring, the relief in her voice evident. Zane closed his eyes, the tension in his muscles finally starting to ease.

"Had you worried for a minute there, did I?" He joked halfheartedly.

"Yes," Jo said, her voice uncharacteristically subdued. There was a weighty pause.

"Come home," Zane said.

"Meet me there?"

"I'll be there."

Jo met him at the door, although it was less like a meeting and more like an ambush. She had him through the threshold and against the back of the door in seconds flat. It was so fast that he was honestly uncertain how the door had been closed in the first place, but it was also difficult to care, because the kissing was nice. Very nice, at least until Jo pulled back, wrinkling up her nose.

"You smell like steamed slug."

"Thank... you?" He said, mildly dazed. She tugged at his shirt.

"Shower?" He made a noise akin to a moan and she grinned. "Thought so." She stripped off her blouse in one smooth movement, causing him to do a double take and trip over the living room rug.

"Wh - ow! - Where's Claire?" Jo's voice drifted back to him from their bedroom.

"Carter," she said, and he followed her in. "Until seven, at least." Zane met her in the ensuite, eyebrows raised.

"What'd he do to deserve that?" Normally that would get a laugh, but Jo's face was serious when she looked at him.

"I thought we'd need some time to talk." Zane raised an eyebrow.

"This is talking?" He didn't mean to sound accusatory, really, but some accusation came through regardless, and Jo gave him a annoyed look.

"You know, maybe you don't see it this way, but after Claire your welfare is my first priority."

"And where exactly does your welfare fall on that list?" Jo looked startled.

"What?" She asked, genuinely confused.

"You're not very good at taking care of yourself, you know." He said, simply.

She still looked confused, so he clarified.

"You're so busy saving everybody else, that sometimes you don't try very hard to save yourself. Someday you're going to push yourself too far, Jo. You're not Wonder Woman." He cracked a grin in an obvious bid to lighten the mood. "Though that would be awesome." She ignored him, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Oh? And what about you? 'Claire needs her mother'? What about her father?" Zane shrugged. She narrowed her eyes at him.

"I did just fine without one," he said, shortly. Jo gave a harsh laugh.

"Oh yes, the criminal record does make for an impressive resume."

"And what about you?" Zane demanded.

"What about me?" Jo snapped.

"Growing up without a mother was a good time, was it," Zane pointed out. Jo flinched. The two of them went silent for a moment, until Jo sighed and rubbed at her forehead.

"We're a hell of a pair, aren't we," she said. Zane eyed her warily and she shook her head. "But we're what she's got. I know that, Zane, honestly I do." She looked up at him and shrugged her defeat. "I'm not perfect. I screwed up. I'm sorry."

For a moment, he didn't say anything, but fiddled with the dials of the Jacuzzi tub beside them, watching the steaming water pour out of the taps in a parody of the dormancy gel that had completely and utterly destroyed what was left of the PALs. Then, he began to laugh.

"What?" Jo stared at him, perplexed and a little annoyed.
"The PALs," he said, his voice laced with a peculiar combination of resignation and amusement. "They were supposed to keep you safe. Keep all of us safe, really." Jo quirked a wry smile, radiant in only panties and a bra of lavender satin, stray strands of hair framing her face. She stepped forward and ran the tips of her fingers delicately along the stitches on his forehead.

"And that wasn't supposed to happen," she said quietly.

"That's not what the PALs said, though, is it?" Zane asked, studying her. Jo flinched.

"No. It's not," she confirmed.

"You should have told me," he said, this time without rancor. She dropped her eyes to his chest and plucked at his shirt without meeting his eyes.

"I know."

Zane slid down to the floor, letting his head fall back against the tub, and closed his eyes.

"We need to get better at this trust thing," he said. Jo followed him down to the floor and curled into his side, the two of them listening to the quiet rush of steaming water behind them.

"It's a work in progress," she sighed, and then: "Zane?"

"Mmm?"

"For the love of God, please take off those clothes."

Later that night, Jo looked up from her copy of Military Ma'ams to cast a speculative look at Zane. His eyes were glued to the data readouts from the now-defunct PALs, his forehead slightly creased.

"Zane," she said eventually, thinking once more of her brother settling in across town.

"What?" He asked, only half paying attention.

"You didn't hack the DoD again, did you?"

Zane barked a startled laugh.

"What?" he asked, before catching on. "Oh. You think I'm the reason Daniel ended up here?" Jo just looked at him. "Seriously, you overestimate me."

Jo raised her eyebrows.

"Are you saying you could do it seven months ago but now you can't?" She asked, skeptical. Zane grinned, tossing his tablet onto the floor and flipping over to pin her beneath him.

"I'm saying," he nipped the skin over her pulse point and smirked at her sharp intake of breath, "that I'm not that nice."

"Ah," Jo said, sounding suddenly breathless. "Not a nice man. Right. Funny how I forget."

"It really is," Zane said amicably. Jo grinned at him.

"You know what though?" She asked, and suddenly Zane was on his back, looking up at her. He blinked. Somehow, during the intervening months when she'd been roughly the size of the Goodyear blimp, he'd forgotten she could do that. She leaned in, her lips brushing the sensitive skin of his earlobe. He shuddered. "Neither am I."

Then her lips drifted somewhere truly excellent, and Zane forgot about words entirely.

Um...hi.

Major credit to whoever posted that desperate message as Guest. Your timing was, apparently, quite good.

I'll be interested to see who's actually still reading this...!