Disclaimer: Don't own Eureka. And if I did, I wouldn't have cancelled it (looking at you, SyFy).

Walking into her office at 6:45 a.m., Jo felt like a 20 pound weight had been strapped to her shoulders. She eyed the cot in her holding cell with longing. As head of GD security, all-nighters weren't unheard of, but were usually fueled by adrenaline. Her uninterrupted night of paper pushing had bordered on torture, and it wasn't over yet.

Next up was an interview with some brainiac that the DoD—and, apparently, Allison and Fargo—thought would be a suitable replacement for Zane. Even though Zane's tutoring for Astraeus meant phrases like "orbital dynamics" and "harmonic oscillations" no longer caused Jo's eyes to glaze over, the thought of listening to yet another geek boast about his or her accomplishments was almost unbearable. Only the knowledge that 8 solid hours of sleep awaited her when it was over made the prospect tolerable.

Jo dropped into her desk chair and pressed the power button on her tablet computer. Usually she'd have at least an hour to read a job applicant's resume, background checks and written assessments from prior interviewers before beginning her security evaluation, the last step before an up or down decision on hiring was made. Now a quick glance at the tablet's time stamp confirmed that she had less than 10 minutes remaining before the candidate was due at her door. Which made it all the more frustrating to find that no pre-evaluation documents were waiting in the file sharing database for her review.

Blowing out a sigh, Jo clicked over to her email inbox. Nothing. "Great," she muttered, reaching for the phone. No answer at Larry's extension. Ditto for the IT support line, which invited her to leave a message so they could get back to her at their convenience, no doubt after she'd no longer need their help.

Wonderful. Instead of just being underprepared, she was going to have to completely wing this interview. Jo mentally cursed Allison and Fargo again for not telling her sooner that they'd selected an applicant for Zane's position. Not only did she not like being out of the loop, it was humiliating to think that they'd expected her to crumble at the mention of his name. Wryly, she realized that this must be how Allison had felt while on psych leave, chafing at Carter's well-intentioned if slightly patronizing doting.

6:57 a.m. Too late now to do anything but wait for this meeting to be over. Jo folded her arms on her desk and put her head down to wait for the candidate's knock.

EUREKA EUREKA EUREKA EUREKA

Jo's eyes snapped open. A noise had awakened her, but instinctive caution kept her from moving until she'd identified its source. Keeping her head on her arms, she strained to listen until she caught the nearby sound of shuffling. Feet on carpet. The carpet in her office. Her office, where she was supposed to be interviewing a job applicant right now. A hot wave of embarrassment flooded Jo, who looked up, fervently hoping that she hadn't drooled on herself while sleeping.

She blinked rapidly, trying to focus on the figure standing a few feet from her desk. "I'm sorry," she began. "Please sit down…". Jo's voice trailed off. Was she still asleep? That was one explanation for what she saw before her. The other was less comprehensible. Either she was dreaming, or the person standing before her in a sharply tailored gray suit was Zane.

She discarded the dream option after only brief consideration. True, she had once hallucinated Zane after one of Eureka's experiments-gone-wrong, but that vision had walked straight out of her memory, stubbly beard, fitted T-shirt and all. This Zane was clean shaven and—the detail which lacked any precedent Jo could remember—was wearing not only the gray suit but a neatly fitted tie. He looked positively corporate. Convinced that even her dreams wouldn't conjure a version of Zane she'd never imagined seeing, Jo concluded he had to be real. For a moment, all she could do was stare.

Across the room, Zane's amusement at seeing Jo snoring at her desk faded into wariness. As Jo continued to stare at him without speaking, he realized that he'd overlooked an inherent risk in meeting at her office. His eyes flicked to the arsenal of weapons on the wall behind her. Even the most optimistic calculation of his distance from Jo showed he couldn't reach her before she reached a gun. If she was truly as angry as he suspected, his life expectancy might have shortened substantially over the past few minutes.

"Man up," Zane thought to himself. "If you're going down, at least do what you came to do before it happens." He straightened slightly and looked into Jo's eyes. "I'm here for a job interview. It was scheduled for 7—." Despite his best intentions, Zane couldn't keep a slight smirk off his face as he looked at his watch. He'd been watching Jo sleep for nearly 20 minutes.

"In any event, this is my resume and the pre-evaluation reports you'll want to review." He stepped forward cautiously, watching Jo for sudden movement. When she ignored the manila envelope he extended toward her, Zane dropped it on the desktop. He sighed, lowering himself into the visitor's chair, eyes still fixed on Jo. She wasn't going to make this easy, but he'd expected that. Now he'd have to see whether she'd go along at all, or just have him thrown out of GD.

Jo broke her silence. "Zane, what the HELL…". Her sleep-induced fog was gone, and she was fighting the urge to lunge at him when her cell phone flashed, indicating that an urgent message had arrived. She snatched it up and read the text:

JO:

GIVE ZANE A CHANCE. DO NOT KILL HIM.

JACK

"Fine", huffed Jo, slamming the phone down. She glared at Zane. "You want to play a game? I'm really too tired and too busy and too sick of you for this crap right now, but since everyoneseems to be behind it, go right ahead. Tell me—why are you here playing dress-up, Zane?" And why the hell did you leave? The last went unspoken, but both Jo and Zane heard the question anyway.

"I told you. I'm here to interview for the particle physicist position—," Zane began. "It's YOUR job!" Jo snapped. "Or it was until you left it with no notice. What makes you think—." "Are you going to listen to me?" Zane growled. "Or do you just want to vent for a while. Because, if you do, I can come back later. Just let me know when you're done."

"Great," Zane thought. "That didn't take long—a month of planning down the drain in less than a minute." He took a deep breath and started again.

"I'm really sorry, Jo." At this, her mouth closed. Zane continued. "I didn't mean to upset you." Her eyebrows raised. "Even if that's exactly what I did…look, let me explain what I meant to happen here. Please-you can kick my ass when I'm finished." Jo's lips twitched slightly and she leaned back in her chair. "All right—at least that's something to look forward to. Go ahead."

Zane leaned forward, his expression serious. "Like I said before, Jo, you don't even realize what you did for me. By getting that pardon, you gave me my life back. I can't begin to thank you for that. Or the others—Carter, Allison, Fargo, Henry, Grace, even Parrish—every one of them signed a character reference for me. I don't know why they'd do that. I don't even know some of them very well—certainly not in this…um, well, not now."

Jo nodded, acknowledging his reference to the different timelines, then spoke. Her voice was less angry, but still tinged with confusion. "What does that have to do with why you left, Zane? Or why you're here now? Interviewing for your own job? That doesn't even make sense."

"It didn't to me either, at first. All I knew is that I felt like I'd gone from having FELON stamped on my forehead to EX-FELON. A huge difference for me, but probably not so much to anyone else. To them, I was still the same asshole who got his job at GD because he was too…useful…to rot in prison. But my get-out-of-jail-free card wasn't due to anything I did. Or at least," Zane's gaze on Jo turned intense. "Not anything I remember doing. So I'm just an asshole who got lucky—thanks to other people." His eyes moved away, so he didn't see Jo flinch at his harsh tone.

"I've never given a shit what people think of me—most people, anyway—but I realized that if I stayed in Eureka, it couldn't just be because I wanted to. It has to be because I deserve to be here. And for it to work, people have to see that I didn't cut any corners. That means I have to earn my spot at GD, and on the Astraeus mission, just like everyone else. So I started from scratch. Bought this suit, went for the total reformed man look. Sent an application in to the DoD, interviewed with a bunch of bureaucrats. Thanks to the pardon, none of them knew they were dealing with a former menace to society." Zane grinned. "I even passed the psych tests. Turns out I'm narcissistic but stable. Who knew?" Jo gave him a small smile. "They could have asked me," she thought.

"Anyway, once I got the thumbs up from the Pentagon, I called Fargo. I asked him not to tell you when the application paperwork came in." Jo opened her mouth to speak, but Zane anticipated her question. "I had to, Jo. If you had time to prepare before I came back, I'd never get through to you. You'd be shut down—even if I asked whether you gave a damn if I stayed or went, I don't think I'd get an honest answer." He laughed without a trace of humor. "If I had the guts to ask, that is."

"Anyway, Fargo didn't tell me to fuck off—gotta thank him for that. Instead, he talked to Allison and, next thing I knew, here I am. The only question is whether I'll pass the Security eval." Jo looked down at the assessment reports she'd pulled from the envelope while Zane was speaking. She picked up one titled Global Dynamics Background Check and Risk Assessment. "According to this, you passed," she said quietly.

Zane shook his head. "Not what I meant." He stood, eyes locked with Jo's, and walked slowly around her desk. She turned toward him and he squatted, putting his hands on the arms of her chair. "I screwed up, Jo. In a way, we both did, but it's mostly my fault. After Fargo told me about…1947…I really did want to know what we'd been to each other, and if there was any chance we could have that again. But I didn't do the follow through—we just jumped into bed."

Jo frowned. "Don't get me wrong—I loved every minute of being with you. But you weren't with me, you were making love to a ghost. And I let you do it, because it was fun and it was easy and…" Zane took another deep breath. "It was less scary than seeing if I could measure up to your memory."

Blinking back tears, Jo shook her head. "Not just your fault," she whispered. "I was scared too. Not just that you wouldn't measure up but, after I got to know you…" It was her turn to take a deep breath. "I was afraid I might like you-might love you, maybe more than I did before. It doesn't make sense, but it felt like a betrayal of…the other-you. Especially since I had no idea if you—this-you-could ever feel the same." She looked into Zane's eyes. "I still don't."

"Josephina," said Zane. "We won't know until we try. After all, no one can see the future…time travel is impossible, right?" He smiled and leaned forward until their lips nearly touched. "But this time, I mean really try—the whole getting to know each other thing before we get to, um, know each other anymore."

Jo pulled back. "Why, Mr. Donovan. Are you suggesting a…date? During a job interview? That's highly irregular."

"Well, Ms. Lupo," said Zane, grinning. "I said I'm reformed, not dead."

"Good thing," she responded. "Because you have a job to start in…" Jo looked at her watch. "About now." She stood and signed the bottom of the Risk Assessment form, then handed it to Zane. "And you have to pick me up for dinner by 7 tonight." He stood as well, while Jo's eyes traveled up and down his body. "Oh, and Donovan?" He grinned. "Ditch the suit. I'm really more of a jeans and T-shirt sort of girl."

"Yes, ma'am." Zane walked to the door of Jo's office and turned. "I'm really looking forward to…working with you." He spoke softly. "On everything, Jo-Jo." And there it was—the look, the one he'd seen on Jo's face as she'd gazed around the sparkles and lace gracing Henry's garage.

As the door closed behind Zane, Jo smiled and picked up her cell phone.

"ALL CLEAR." She paused, then added Fargo and Allison's names to Carter's in the "To" list. "THANK YOU—FROM BOTH OF US."

Jo hit send and rose, stretching. Sleep was calling her, but it was no longer just a bridge to another bleak day. Zane's fresh start was going to be one for her too. Maybe, just maybe, it would be them that made it work this time.

A/N: Drowning in mushiness…I suspect we won't see anything remotely like this on screen in Season 4.5, if ever. But thanks for reading-this has been fun!