Disclaimer: 'A Town Called Eureka' doesn't belong to me, and neither do the characters who live in said fictional town. Obviously.

A/N: Hello and welcome to my first, somewhat tentative foray into the Eureka fandom. Before you start to read, to introduce this story I probably need to explain a few things about where my interests lie (although if you've ever read any of my other stories, you probably already know). The short answer is that I like to write angst and whump - in relatively equal and undoubtedly large quantities.

The longer answer, however, is that I've always found the characters' backstories far more interesting than anything else, even more so when the show itself doesn't put any focus on them. With Sheriff Jack Carter, nothing much is mentioned about his past before Eureka (apart from his previous job and his ex-wife), so I had a relatively blank slate to work with. I've definitely taken some liberties with that (angst and whump-wise), and some of the things I've added to the little we do know about him probably says more about me than I would like (I'm not a horrible person, I promise!). Even so, I hope I've at least kept the plot interesting for those who don't share my interest in Carter's potential backstory, or for those who don't like angst and whump as much as I do.

Anyway now that the blurb is out of the way, you can finally get on with reading the story. It's set sometime after Stark proposed to Allison at the end of Season 2, but other than that, the timeline is pretty open to interpretation. So without further ado, here it is. I hope you like what I've written as much as I've enjoyed writing it!

~ Hit and Hope ~

Part One

"Dammit, Todd, just put the weapon down!" Jack ordered, his gun fixed on the man with unerring control. "Put it down now!"

"You put yours down first!" the scientist – Todd – snapped back, with the kind of manic and out of control expression on his face that only really crazy people could pull off. Todd didn't seem to care that Jack was pointing a gun at him either. In fact, he seemed more annoyed by the fact that his work had been interrupted than anything else.

Jack, for his part, kept his eyes fixed on the man, not even daring to take one more step into Todd's lab space. Crazy or not, Todd didn't look like he was going to make a move to put down the device in his hands - a device that definitely looked a lot like a weapon – which meant Jack wasn't going to lower his gun either…

"Carter, do you really need to point that thing at him?" Stark asked casually, arms crossed as he leaned against the door frame of Todd's lab, and clearly not in the least bit concerned by the death ray gun – as Jack had immediately dubbed it in his head – currently being pointed at them by a deranged man sporting a white lab coat, thick goggles, and a ridiculous Doc Brown-style hairstyle.

Focused on the task at hand though, Jack ignored Stark and finally moved another step further into the room, eyes still fixed on Todd.

"Carter…" warned Allison cautiously. Jo and Fargo watched silently on behind him, but Jack wasn't feeling much support coming from the two of them either. Jack rolled his eyes. Stark, Fargo, Jo and Allison had clearly followed him to Todd's lab mainly, it seemed, to try and convince him to calm down.

Which of course only served to piss him off even more…

"Carter…" Stark warned in a voice so filled with exasperation that it immediately told Jack he wasn't taking this situation – or Jack himself – very seriously.

"Will you just shut up for once and let me do my job!" Jack snapped at Stark.

Stark scoffed but didn't make any further comments, apparently content to sit back and watch the 'fireworks'. Jack glanced at the others, but only Jo seemed to be considering actually doing anything to help.

In fact, after a few quiet seconds of clear indecision, Jo slowly made her way forward stood to the right of him, then silently raised her own gun and aimed it at Todd. The others didn't move, but Jack nodded at Jo; yeah, apparently she was the only person in the room who had any intention of helping him…

"Carter…" Allison began again, her tone faintly disappointed; which in her own, more passive way, meant she wasn't taking him seriously either. Great. Jack wanted to growl out in frustration when Allison shook her head and continued, "It's not what it looks like…"

"Are you kidding me?" he asked instead, gesturing his gun towards his target in a clear sign of intent that even Fargo couldn't miss. "This idiot builds a freaking death ray gun, shootsan intern, points it at us, and you want to…what, hold hands with the guy?"

"Dr Jenkins isn't a threat," Allison told him, with the patience of someone trying to explain something relatively complicated to a slightly dense three-year old. "And that isn't a death-ray gun, Carter. His experiment - the one you're yelling at him to put down by the way- is a completely sanctioned project."

"It's a healing device," Fargo added, unable to stay quiet even in such a tense situation. "It's supposed to repair damaged skin tissue. The initial reports are showing that not only will it be able to heal fresh wounds in seconds without even leaving a mark, but that it will eventually able to heal old scars as well."

"Shut up, Fargo," Jo added, glaring at the young scientist who immediately closed his mouth.

"Bottom line, Carter, it isn't a weapon," Stark added, smiling infuriatingly as if amused by the fact that Jack didn't know what was going on.

"He shot someone with it!" Jack argued, making no move to lower his own weapon. "They were knocked unconscious!"

"And since waking up again, that person has suffered absolutely no long term ill-effects from the incident," Todd argued, a little bit of smugness flickering through his fear-filled expression now that he had realised that over half the room was on his side. "Or did you forget to check your facts before you came storming in here waving your gun around?"

Jack shook his head in frustration but didn't back down. Actually, the fact that Allison and Stark seemed to agree with the smug bastard only made Jack want to shoot him more. Jack was getting really sick of the two of them defending arrogant, irresponsible, jackass scientists all the time…

"It's completely safe," Allison told him calmly.

"Right," Jack replied sarcastically. "How many times have I heard that one before?"

"Carter, you're completely overreacting," Stark added, rolling his eyes. "Just put down your gun."

"Look, I don't tell you how to do your jobs, okay?" Jack shot back. "Don't tell me how to do mine. Jo, you with me?"

"I'm with you, partner," Jo replied instantly, her own weapon – much larger than his own – fixed on their target. "On three?"

"Yep," Jack replied, eye focusing on his target. "You move in, I'll cover you."

"Jack…" Allison began again.

Jack ignored her, his attention focused on Todd. "Look, you have three seconds to put down the weapon, or my deputy is going to take it from you by force. And she might be small, but she could break your arm in three different ways using only her pinky finger and her thumb if she wanted to. So put it down." Jack sighed inwardly when Todd didn't move, then he began to count. "One. Two…"

"But I haven't done anything wrong!" The scientist protested. "Dr Blake, please talk some sense into this Neanderthal – "

"Neanderthal?" Jack growled, tightening his grip on his weapon. He took a step forward, gun raised, even though deep down he knew he wasn't going to need to shoot it. With Jo already moving in, it was only a matter of time before they had the smug bastard down on the ground while they read him his rights. Jack smiled to himself. At least some good was going to come from this…

"Don't come any closer!" Todd yelled, raising him own weapon – and there was no way in hell that Jack was buying that it was anything but a weapon, especially since the man was aiming it straight at his head.

"Put it down, Todd," Jack said, careful to keep his words calm, trying to focus on his training. His heart was hammering in his chest as he took another step forward, his gun still raised, completely in sync with Jo as she moved in as well. It would be over in a second. He was in the zone now; all instinct and control.

Just one more step…

But before Jo could reach Todd, the scientist seemed to come to some sort of decision. After that, Jack saw everything happen almost in slow-motion.

He saw the exact moment that Todd decided to take his chances, the moment the man tightened his finger on what Jack assumed was the trigger on his death-ray thingy.

And then a second later, Jack saw the exact moment that a wave of something shot out of the end of the weapon and made its way directly towards him.

And then it hit him, and all Jack knew was that he was flying backwards through the air.

"Carter!"

His body smacked against the wall at the back of the office with a loud thud, shaking him down to the bones and jarring his head so hard that he couldn't even form a coherent thought beyond 'ow'. He felt pain radiate through every inch of his back at the impact, and as his limp body slid down to the floor, he tried desperately to catch his breath, a task made all the more difficult by the fact that the wall had pretty much knocked all the breath out of him.

Jack shook his head slowly as he slowly sank down to the floor and tried to get his bearings, his lungs making a desperate effort to pull in air. The floor was softer than the wall, but not by much…

"God, Carter, are you okay?"

As he settled on the floor with his back against the wall, Jack closed his eyes, his head pounding in rhythm with his rapid heartbeat. Only half-aware of what had just happened, he slowly lifted a hand and rubbed at his aching chest. The trouble was that the fire in his back was still making it difficult to breathe, or think for that matter. There was a faint ringing in his ears and he couldn't work out if he was upside down or the right way up. He had a feeling he'd banged his head. Nothing was making much sense…

"Carter?" Allison repeated, her voice sounding far-away. "Are you okay?"

Jack opened his eyes again and immediately tried to move, but the dizziness made him want to puke.

"Sheriff…"

It hurt – it really, really, hurt – but after a few seconds, and with no small amount of effort, Jack managed to move his legs slightly. When they twitched – albeit not entirely deliberately - Jack let out a huge breath, relief flooding through his body as it sunk in that at least he hadn't broken his back. He could move, if he wanted to.

With that in mind, and groaning slightly at the pain that flared up, Jack immediately tried to pull himself back to his feet.

"Carter…"

Allison held out her hand to steady him, but Jack pulled away from her, stepping backwards almost until he hit the wall again. His whole body hurt, but there was no way in hell he was going to tell anyone that.

His head was starting to clear, and with clarity of thought came almost immediate anger.

Dammit, they'd taken the scientist's side again, and Jack was more than a little pissed off at Stark and Allison in particular. Old, long buried feelings rose to the surface again, and Jack had no defences left to stop them this time.

Very suddenly, he wanted to go home, preferably before he punched something. He glanced sideways at Stark. Or someone…

"No," Jack shook his head forcefully, wincing as the moving caused sharp pain to shoot across his temple. He had no idea who he was talking to. Everything felt out of whack. "I'm fine, just…just leave me alone."

They were crowding around him now; Allison, Fargo, even Stark. He wanted to believe that they actually wanted to see if he was alright, but he couldn't help but think that the three of them – maybe even Jo as well - only cared about the stupid experiment that had just blasted him into the wall, and whether it might escape, or spread, or at the very least cause some sort of trouble to the town itself. He probably wasn't being fair to them all, but the truth was, he was long past the point of being fair.

Because they lied to him on a regular basis, or at the very least they actively hid things from him – things that he had a right to know about. Jack was sick to death of being the last person to find out anything. Death-rays, top-secret artefacts, Stark proposing to Allison again…

"That's it," he told them, closing his eyes as the dizziness rose up again. "I'm going home."

"Carter, you can't just…"

"I can," Jack interrupted as he opened his eyes again, careful to allow only his sincere anger to filter through in an attempt to cover up his fear. He pushed away the dizziness as best he could. "I can do whatever the hell I want. And right now, I want to go home." He paused and then pointed at Stark. "You know what? You can take care of the crazy scientist for once. I'm done."

Stark rolled his eyes. "Carter – "

"Jo," Jack interrupted, calling out to his deputy, who had been in the process of trying to secure the scene.

"Yeah?" she asked a little unsurely. He was glad to see that she had Todd on the floor, her knee pressed firmly on his back and the death-ray gun well out of the man's reach. At least someone listened to him…

"Take me home," he said wearily, wobbling slightly as he walked forward to go and pick up his own gun, which he'd dropped when the burst of energy had flung him across the room.

"Take you home?" Jo asked, brow furrowed. "Now?"

She must have missed his argument with Allison – she had probably been too busy actually doing her job. Exactly like he was supposed to be doing, except the damn scientists made it so difficult sometimes that he almost wondered why he bothered at all.

He'd trained to be a US Marshall, spent years working hard and fighting harder, but in Eureka he was nothing but a glorified security guard crossed with a janitor, occasionally with a little bit of traffic warden added in for good measure. And god forbid anyone might actually thank him for his service to the town.

Instead, he was almost always painted as the bad guy - someone who constantly 'overreacted' to the insane stunts they pulled or simply ruined the 'fun'. Either that or he was a 'Neanderthal' - someone too stupid to even properly comprehend the potential benefits that could come from testing a freaking death ray gun.

Jack wasn't sure which was worse – probably too stupid to work it out, he thought bitterly - but he did know that neither attitude was good…

"Carter," Jo prompted, pulling Jack out of his thoughts. He shook his head in an effort to knock some sense back into his battered brain. "You want to go home?"

"Yeah," Jack replied. He pointed shakily to Todd, who was whimpering something about 'police brutality'. Jack shook his head. "Leave him, he's not worth it. Take me home. Now."

Because he wanted to storm out, but he knew that he couldn't manage it on his own, not with the way that his head was pounding and the fact that he felt dizzy and sick all at once. All he wanted was to go home and forget about his crappy day, but he at least had enough sense left to know that he probably shouldn't drive when he felt this bad…

"Shouldn't you get checked out first?" Jo asked, brow pinched in concern. She kept looking at the right side of his face. He wondered if he was bleeding.

"I'm fine," he ground out. "Just hit the wall a bit hard. Nothing's broken. S.A.R.A.H. can check me out properly when I get home if it'll make you feel better."

"You just got zapped –"

"By a healing device, apparently," Jack muttered bitterly, loud enough for everyone to hear him. "Maybe it can do something about my knee. Thing's been bothering me for weeks now."

His deputy remained annoyingly unconvinced, but Jack needed to get out of GD in the next few seconds, or he was going to blow...

"Please, Jo," he said, gesturing towards the door. Jo took his lead, but before he followed her, Jack walked gingerly over to the death-ray gun and picked it up from the floor. It looked innocuous, just like every other piece of technology that had nearly killed him in the last year.

With no small amount of anger but as much dignity as he could muster in his battered condition, Jack thrust the weapon into the unresisting arms of Stark and then turned back to his deputy, who was waiting for him in the doorway. She had her arms crossed, and he knew she would want him to get checked out before he left, that she was probably about to refuse to take him home until he did, but Jack wasn't exactly in an accommodating mood.

"Look, I'm going home now, with or without you, Jo," Jack said, careful not to wince, just in case she decided to take the decision out of his hands. "Up to you."

"With me then," Jo decided quickly, and Jack loved her for that. She moved up to him and then without even asking, she pulled his arm over her shoulder, allowing him to put some of his weight against her. "Come on then, partner."

"Jack, you don't need to go…" Allison began, but Jack had reached his limit.

"Yeah, I do," he replied, looking around the room. "Obviously you don't need me here. Let me know when you're ready to take me seriously."

"Carter…"

Jack paused to catch his breath slightly then looked back at Allison. "Maybe this time you can get one of your precious scientists to clean up this mess for you, because I'm sure as hell not doing it anymore."

And with that, he left, limping along with Jo as his crutch, clinging on to his last shred of dignity in a somewhat futile attempt to keep it intact.

"Ow, ow, ow," moaned Jack as he lowered himself carefully onto his couch. "Ow…"

"How are you feeling, Sheriff Carter?" S.A.R.A.H. asked in that annoying robotic voice that Fargo had programmed for her. With S.A.R.A.H's help, he'd managed to convince Jo that he didn't need to see a doctor, but he had agreed to at least take the rest of the day off to recover. Despite his front, he hadn't really pushed against her demand very hard, offering a token resistance at best. The truth was, he was finding it harder and harder to come up with any good reasons to go back to work at all.

Jo, it seemed, shared that view, although for entirely different reasons. His deputy clearly – and not entirely without reason – didn't think he would look after himself, even though he had a computerised house watching and recording his every move.

After plenty of arguments and disapproving looks, all of which made Jack feel like an idiot all over again, Jo had reluctantly agreed to back to work with a promise to return at precisely 3 o'clock so that she could make sure he hadn't died in the meantime.

Jack sighed as his body relaxed against the soft cushions of the couch.

It was only once she'd left that Jack had finally allowed the pain to finally show on his face. It hurt, and it was exhausting to have to hide it.

Thankfully Zoe was at school for the rest of the afternoon, and he vaguely recalled that she had some plans with friends later on that night, so at least he had the house for himself for a bit. Now that he was alone, Jack sighed again and allowed his body to sink deeper into the couch as he closed his eyes. He could finally rest in peace…

"Sheriff Carter," S.A.R.A.H repeated, forcing Jack to immediately revise his definition of 'peace'. He cracked his eyes open. "How are you feeling? As I informed Deputy Sheriff Lupo, I don't detect any broken bones, but I am picking up a number of new contusions…"

"Everything hurts," he replied in an attempt to satisfy his nosy house, turning to lie on his side since leaning against his back was excruciating in his current condition. "But it's nothing that I can't handle."

"Shall I call a doctor for you?" she asked. He'd already had this argument with her – and Jo – but his mind was made up. He didn't want the fuss of seeing a doctor. He just wanted to lie on his couch and wallow about his crappy day in peace...

"No," Jack replied, sighing slightly. Then he decided to push his luck. "But you could order pizza for me?"

"I'm afraid that isn't within my capabilities," S.A.R.A.H. replied without missing a beat.

That made Jack laugh, which was a miracle in itself. "Yeah, sure it isn't. Well, it's a good job I'm not really hungry then, isn't it?"

In fact he was starting to feel really…weird. Not nauseous exactly, but not well either. He opened his eyes and tried to move, but found that his body wouldn't obey him. In fact, as the room started to spin, making him feel sick and dizzy all at once, Jack wondered whether he'd hit his head a little harder than he'd originally thought…

"Sheriff Carter," S.A.R.A.H said suddenly. "Your vital signs seem to be fluctuating. Are you okay?"

But Jack couldn't answer. He couldn't even hear her anymore.

"Sheriff Carter…"

His eyes were already closed as he fell into the darkness, down, down, until he knew no more.

Allison hated feeling guilty.

Of course, with the unique pressures that she faced at GD it wasn't exactly an uncommon feeling, but she hated it nonetheless. The way it burned up inside her chest for days on end, the way it niggled at her mind until she was forced to confront it – to do something in order to make some sort of amends. In her line of work, and with the decisions she faced daily, she was very well acquainted with the feeling of guilt – however undeserved it often was - but even so, it felt a little different this time.

Maybe it was because it was Carter. She knew she had been treated him poorly for the last few weeks, although she still wasn't sure why.

Or, maybe it was because – unlike some of the other times when the decisions had left her feeling guilty – this time she knew, unequivocally so, that she was entirely in the wrong.

When she had voiced her concerns about the disagreement with Carter, Stark had immediately disagreed of course, but then he and Carter never agreed on anything, almost on principle. They were very different men, which made it all the more frustrating that she liked both of them. Of course that feeling of being torn between the two had no doubt contributed to her recent treatment of Carter – who had never been anything other than a very good friend – but it certainly wasn't fair of her.

Carter definitely deserved better.

In the end, it was her guilt that had led her back to the room where Carter had been shot, long after Carter himself had gone home. This time, she had come armed with a reluctant Stark and a team of their best and brightest in tow, all tasked with trying to work out what the hell had happened.

This time she was determined not to let Carter down. She would right her wrong and then she would apologise, and hope that Carter could eventually forgive her…

"Dammit," cursed Stark, typing frantically as he double-checked his findings. Allison moved over to the station he was working at, almost reluctant to find out what he had discovered.

"What?" Allison replied, dread filling her stomach.

"Carter was right," Stark replied. "I hate it when he's right.

"What are you talking about, Nathan?" she asked.

"The device that Dr Jenkins was building," began Stark. "The one he was waving in our faces a couple of hours ago. It wasn't even close to the device he laid out in his plans. He's been working on something entirely different to what we thought."

"What about the reports he's been filing?" Allison asked, glancing over his shoulder. Dammit, Carter was right.

"Faked," Stark replied, "He's installed a clever little program into his equipment in order to fool it all into thinking he was on target, when in reality he was doing something completely different."

"Doing what?" Allison asked, desperation filtering into her tone. "And if it wasn't a healing device, what the hell did he shoot Carter with?"

Stark gave her a grim look. "I have no idea."

A/N – So how was it? Does anyone out there want to read more? If so, I'd really love to hear from you, even it's just to say hi. I've really taken a liking to the strange, fun, wonderful show that is 'A Town Called Eureka' of late, but I know the show actually finished a while ago so I hope I'm not the only one left who's still interested in those characters! Anyway, updates may be sporadic, but I'll try my best to get the next chapter out to you fairly quickly. Until then, and as always, thanks for reading!