Eureka Ficlet: Torn
Title: Torn
Fandom: Eureka
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Jo Lupo
Rating: G
Spoilers: General for series four.
Summary: Jo is torn, knowing she has to keep their secret but wanting to tell Zane the truth about everything.
Word Count: 370
Written For: kayim’s prompt ‘Eureka, Jo Lupo, She finds it hard keeping their secret from Zane, especially when all she wants is to have him back,’ at
fic_promptly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Eureka, or the characters. They belong to their creators.
She’d had so many doubts when Zane proposed; turning him down had seemed like the only sensible option, and Jo was nothing if not sensible and pragmatic. They worked as a couple, more or less, but married? That was scary, it was too settled, too permanent, and Zane was so… Zane. Erratic, unpredictable, often childish, and with no moral compass, he operated primarily on self-interest. How could she trust him with her future?
Then her entire world got turned on its head, nothing was as it had been, the past was completely altered, and everything she remembered never happened. As far as Zane was concerned, nothing had ever happened between them, if you discounted all the times she’d locked him up.
But Jo remembers, every date, every kiss, every night they spent together… and she remembers falling in love with him, remembers that he loved her. Worst of all, she remembers his proposal with so much clarity that if she closes her eyes she can relive it down to the last tiny detail.
It hurts. She turned him down and now she’s lost him completely. She wants to tell him everything that happened, everything they were to each other, and how it all got screwed up by a freaky jaunt into the past. She can’t though, they’ve all vowed to keep that secret, no one else must ever know because there’s no way of knowing what might happen to them, and to Eureka itself. They’ve messed things up enough as it is, the fact that it was completely unintentional is beside the point. What’s done is done, and it can’t be undone.
Jo knows how to keep a secret; in this town, as well as in her job, it’s an essential ability. Everything that happens in Eureka is on a need-to-know basis, with security clearance levels varying from person to person, and part of her job is making sure nobody can access information they’re not cleared for. She’s used to withholding information, using misdirection, creating cover stories, and even lying when necessary; it goes with the territory.
But this is different, it’s personal; never has a secret been so difficult to keep. This time, it just might break her heart.
The End