Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own words the rest belongs to SyFy.

AN: A friend and I have been discussing what would have made Jo leave a promising career in the Army, a job she loved, to become the deputy sheriff of a small town. Even if that town is Eureka. For some reason no matter how many different reasons I came up with I always went back to it being a very traumatic event.

This story is rated M for the violence of Jo's memory, language and sexual content.

Zane saw the car behind him in his rearview mirror finish rounding the corner at an alarmingly dangerous speed. He had to admire the skill it took to maintain control of the car; well he admired it until he recognized the car. "Fucking Lupo, of course she'd be able to drive with the precision of a NASCAR racer." He thought bitterly. He wasn't exactly sticking to anything close to the speed limit on his bike as he headed to work but at the rate she was going she'd quickly either over take him or run him off the road. He figured it depended on her mood. As she passed him on the straight away like he was standing still he caught a glimpse of her face. "Yep she's pissed. Just fucking great I haven't done anything lately." Figuring she was about to cut him off and finally lay into him for something, part of him was looking forward to it. He let out a hiss as she kept right on going, apparently the unspoken agreement they'd had for the last few months was still in place.

Shortly after he'd kissed her in the sheriff's office they had taken to avoiding each other. Both living under the motto "you stay out of my way; I'll stay out of yours." He'd tried once after the kiss to corner her and get some answers but that hadn't gone well at all. The memory of that confrontation still stung and angered him. Sometimes he wished for the good old days when he knew what to expect from Lupo. He'd screw up she'd come after him inflict some damage than throw his ass in a holding cell somewhere. Then she'd changed tactics on him suddenly giving him the benefit of the doubt and even going so far as to have his back a few times. Now she'd switched tactics again any time she saw him she acted like he was a plague carrier come to town, someone to be avoided at all costs. Wherever he was he could be damn sure she'd start heading in the other direction. Anything involving him and a little mayhem and she'd send someone from her team to deal with it. She was acting like he was no longer worth her time and he was getting pretty fucking sick and tired of it. Hell he was actually starting to miss his solitary time spent sitting in one of those cells. The fact that he still hadn't been able to figure out what had happened to "The Five" only fueled the anger he felt towards her.

Fargo's Office

Zane had been partially right but pissed didn't even come close to how Jo was feeling at the moment. She was livid and fighting very hard for control over her anger as she stood in Fargo's office confronting General Mansfield. "I fully appreciate how important Dr. Monroe's work is and I understand your interest in it. It is important for military personnel returning home from the war to be able to deal with their PTSD. It's important for anyone suffering from it to be able to deal with it. But I Don't Have PTSD, I'm fine." She was struggling to keep her voice even and professional with the General. "I sure as hell don't feel like sharing my memories with anyone, especially not that memory. I should just fucking quit this job, I've had enough of these people ripping my life apart." Jo thought angrily to herself. It had been difficult but Jo thought she was finally getting to a place where she could move on with her life. She even had days where the heartbreak of what she'd lost didn't seem to overwhelm her. Those few moments of respite where something Jo was coming to crave, then she'd run into Zane somewhere and she'd have to start the process all over again. The General's latest request threatened to destroy all of that for her.

"Last year and I would have agreed with you, but the last several months you've changed Lupo." Mansfield started "You haven't

filed a single report on Donovan in months. The scientists aren't cowering away from you in terror. I'm not the only one that's noticed. You're getting soft Lupo."

"Shit! What the hell do they want from me I haven't exactly been running around handing out lollipops to the scientists." Jo had had enough of trying to figure out who she was supposed to be. It hadn't taken her long after arriving in this new time line to decide she was proud of who she was and she wasn't going to change. She'd already lost too much she wasn't about to let them take who she was at her core away from her too. She'd spent hours combing through old reports and the assessment she'd made of her other self was not something Jo was particularly happy about.

"A fucking year ago probably would have been a good time to test for PTSD. My other self had some serious anger management issues." Jo thought bitterly. She knew she had a hair trigger sometimes on her anger but she'd never been anywhere near as bad as the other version of her. Taking a deep breath she tried again to reason with the General. "Director Fargo and I simply looked at the moral of the employee's and decided to do something about it. Things are a lot less tense around here now. I would have thought that was a good thing."

Mansfield stood study the young woman in front of him. He'd known coming up here it wouldn't be easy to get her to agree to take part in this project, but he was standing by his decision to get her to do so. She was right she wasn't suffering from PTSD but she'd also never really faced what had happened to her. She'd pushed in down deep inside of her and sooner or later it was going to come crashing into her with the force of a ballistic missile. Truthfully last year he wouldn't have even considered doing this to her she hadn't been ready yet. Last year she wouldn't even be here discussing it she'd have told him to go to hell and walked away from her job and Eureka for good. He'd noticed the sudden and dramatic change in her months ago and thought that maybe he was already too late to prevent her from crashing and burning.

Despite the mask she tried to wear even a passing acquaintance could tell that she was suddenly incredibly sad and depressed and the General was far from being just a passing acquaintance. He and her father were good friends and he'd known Jo since she'd been a teenager. After her last mission he'd promised her father he'd take care of her, watch her, and he fully intended to keep that promise now. He had been the one to prompt Sheriff Cobb to offer Jo the job here in Eureka thinking it would be a good fit for her. She needed the challenge, something that would keep her on her toes and not bore her to death. She'd been so angry back then, lashing out violently at any provocation. Everyone feared she'd been walking a fine line between being a productive citizen and turning to a life with a group of Mercenary's. An angry Jo Lupo as a mercenary had been a very scary thought. Eureka had seemed like the perfect solution. Maybe all those near world ending disasters the people around here seemed to be hell bent on creating on almost a weekly basis had finally taken its toll on her. Jo had a will of iron but Mansfield knew he could match it and he fully intended to get his way here. Even if he had to play dirty and pull out the concerned parent routine on her. He'd only done it to her once before but it had worked, she'd taken the job as deputy sheriff.

Mansfield softened the look he was giving her and went from being one military professional speaking to another to that of a concerned friend, more a part of her family than her boss. "I'm not asking you Jo I'm telling you to do this. Its time, even your father agrees with me. Something's wrong and has been for months, don't even try and deny it. You can't spend the rest of your life avoiding this. A person can only take so much, even if that person is you. You never talk about what happened, you just pretend it was no big deal. You do the same thing with everything that happens around here, you shrug it off. How long before you can't do that anymore?"

"Yes something is wrong but it sure as hell isn't what you're thinking" Jo thought sadly. She also knew that for her own sake as well as her friends she couldn't tell the General that. Family friend or not he'd still sanction them all for what they'd done. Duty to country came first, Jo understood and agreed with that. He'd have no choice but to take action against all of them. Feeling defeated and angry she also knew she was probably going to lose this argument or she really would have to quit. Jo wondered what life outside Eureka would be like for her, she'd grown to love this small town and its quirky resident's. Part of her thought it would be easier if she left then she wouldn't have to face the daily reminders of everything she'd lost. Café Diem where she and Zane had had their first date, the sheriff's office where they'd first met, even Global was full of reminders of her and Zane. She also knew from experience you couldn't run away from your memories. She'd tried, that was what she'd been doing when she'd taken the deputy sheriff job in the first place.

The General was also wrong she didn't think what had happened was no big deal, far from it. She lived with it every day, it haunted her and always would. She just didn't wallow in the memory and the guilt, if she did she'd be lost. Of course she thought about it, sometimes she couldn't avoid it even though she desperately wanted to. But she could go weeks without it invading her thoughts. Yes it had been easier to do when she and Zane had been together, then she hadn't been alone at night with only her thoughts for company. "Now there are just too damn many memories to fight off. Christ, maybe the General's right maybe it is time to deal with this one. I just fucking don't want to." Jo felt resentful that this was even coming up right now. She had enough to deal with without dragging up old memories from a past she'd left behind, especially memories that were this painful.

Jo's shoulders slumped a little, she knew she wasn't going to quit and leave Eureka for good. It was her home now, she'd fought hard to make it that. She'd never leave the people she'd come to love as if they were her family. She also knew she wasn't ready to accept a life where she'd never see Zane again. She'd accepted they were over and she'd never have that part of her life back, but she wasn't prepared to never see him again. As painful as it was to have to watch him live his life, a life that didn't include her, she couldn't bring herself to just walk away.

She tried one more time to get herself out of the hell she was now facing "Even if I wanted to do this, which I don't, I can't. The entire mission and everything that happened is classified. You know that, my military record is more black lines of nothing than an actual record of anything I've done. No one here is cleared to be read in on it."

"Dr. Monroe has been given clearance for this." Seeing the surprised look on Jo's face the General continued "Not the whole mission or even what the objective was. But we're not talking about the whole mission here just what happened to you and Sinclair. I've been assured by Dr. Monroe that your privacy will be protected from anyone else in the room. Jo you are going to do this and then the video of your memory is going to be given to a counselor that specializes in this type of thing, and Jo you are going to talk to that counselor. I didn't push before, none of us did and maybe that was a mistake. But this time I am going to push, its time you talked to someone."

"Shit! I am not ready for this." Jo was back to being angry. Anger was a hell of a lot easier to deal with than all the other emotions this was bringing up. She knew she'd lost this fight and she was about to relive the worst period of her life. Right at that moment she really hated General Mansfield and her father, because she was pretty sure her father had a hand in this too. "Fine" She hissed out between clenched teeth "When?"

"Today, before you have a chance to change your mind." Mansfield told her relieved he'd gotten her to agree to it. He watched Jo give him a slight but angry nod then storm out of the office before pulling out his phone and calling her father. He let the other man know she'd agreed, reluctantly but she'd agreed. Both men knew they were about to find out just how angry Jo was with them and that she'd find a way to make them pay for it too. She didn't hold a grudge for long but she wasn't above a little retaliation. They decided they could live with that as long as she stopped sounding and looking like her whole world was falling apart.

Grace's Lab

Zane wondered again, probably for the tenth time, why he was here. He didn't have anything to actually do but wait in case there was a problem. It was a complete fucking waste of his time and he was already behind on his own projects. He wasn't the only one standing around in case of a problem Dr. Blake was there too, so was Dr. Monroe's husband Henry Deacon. Although he thought Henry was there more for moral support than anything. Dr. Monroe was worried, worried and nervous. He didn't understand it; sure she was going to be going live with her machine and actually using it on someone with PTSD but so what. As far as Zane knew every test she'd preformed on random scientists and lab techs had gone smoothly why should today be any different. He still didn't know why he fucking needed to be there, if there was a problem shut it down. If they needed him to look at the code after that, which he doubted they would, then fine call him he'd come back. No Dr. Monroe wanted someone there to make changes on the fly if they had to, someone that could easily read the code and fix it quickly. What had she said "I'm only going to get one shot at this, if she even agrees to do it." Hopefully whoever she was she was good looking, at least then he'd have something to concentrate on other than how bored he was. That and wondering what had pissed Lupo off so bad this morning she'd damn near broken the sound barrier driving into work.

He arrived shortly after her, well not too shortly even he didn't take that winding road up here that fast, expecting to find world ending chaos. Instead it had been rather quite when he'd walked in, no one running around trying to stop the planet from exploding or cure a virus threatening to wipe out the town. Yet there had been no mistaking the look on Lupo's face she'd been angry. He'd seen that look directed at him often enough to know it meant she was about to rain down her own personal version of hell on someone. Zane shrugged it off and went back to tapping his fingers on the workstation. Not his problem he hadn't been her target this time, he hadn't been her target in a long time.

Zane looked up when he heard the doors to the lab open to see General Mansfield enter with Jo who looked like she been interrupted on her way to work out. "Fuck that top leaves nothing to the imagination, no don't go there." As usual whenever she was around he was having a little trouble controlling the direction of his thoughts. "Where's the tiny dictator?" Fargo usually had his head so far up Mansfield's ass he was surprised the General didn't need to have it surgically removed. Mansfield looked like he always did a tight lipped bureaucrat who hadn't figure out how to pull the stick out of his ass. It was the look on Jo's face that held Zane's attention she looked resentful, angry and defeated all at once. Lupo definitely didn't want to be here for this. "Now all we need is the test subject to get this party started and then I can actually get my own shit done today." Zane thought impatiently to himself. He was completely blown away when Grace walked over and started explaining to Jo what she needed to do.

"Holy Shit Lupo's the test subject, well that explains the look." He thought incredulous that she'd agreed to take part in something like this. It would certainly explain a lot these last several months. If Lupo was suffering from PTSD that would explain her sudden and dramatic changes in attitude. It still didn't explain the ring, nothing about this brought Zane any closer to figuring out how she'd gotten his grandmother's ring. It also didn't answer his question about why kissing her had felt so familiar. Zane was suddenly very interested in what was going on, maybe this had something to do with what had happened to the five of them. He started scrolling through all the lines of code he'd been ignoring up until now.

"You don't have to do anything Jo just sit in the chair and focus on the memory we're looking for. My device will do the rest and record it. I'll type in a few key words and emotions to help bring in fully into your thoughts. It won't take too long and no one but me will see anything." Grace nervously explained. She had been given a vague briefing on what to expect, although she suspected what little she'd been told didn't come close to telling the whole story. The look on Jo's face spoke volumes Jo had not volunteered for this.

"What if you get a memory other than the one you're looking for? There are parts of my life that I don't want anyone to know about." The look Jo gave Grace let the other woman know she was worried about anything having to do with the time travel coming out.

"Then we'll stop and erase that before starting over. I don't really think it will be an issue if you're already concentrating on what we're looking for. Plus the General provided me with a few key words and emotions he thought would help." Grace answered her gently. She knew this was going to be very hard on Jo and a lab full of people wasn't helping the situation.

"Well I haven't been able to stop thinking about it all morning" Jo replied bitterly as she sat down in the chair Grace had indicated "Why should I suddenly get a break from it now." The tension in Jo's body increased by degree's the longer it took for Grace to get everything in place and start typing away on her computer.

"Jo are you ready?" Grace asked quietly.

"No, just do it and get it over with." She replied her voice was now laced with tension and fear.

"Shit! This isn't right." Zane thought. He was certain Dr. Deacon only meant for Jo to remember something that had happened not relive it like she was actually there again. He didn't know how or why but Dr. Deacon's device was fully integrated and connected with Dr. Harris's across the lab. Dr. Harris was working on making it possible for someone to fully re-experience something from their past. They'd be able to feel everything emotional and physical all over again, smell every scent, and hear every sound. It was meant to make the person believe they were actually there. For someone suffering from PTSD that was not good. Zane called out explaining what was going on. This got Dr. Harris's attention and he came running across the lab but it was too late Grace had hit the computer key.

It only took seconds for the room to be filled with an ear piercing scream of horror and pain. Whatever was happening in Jo's memory she was being violently and painfully hurt. Her entire body had risen and tensed in protest from it.

"shut it down now!" Mansfield yelled.

"Don't touch her and for the love of God Don't turn it off." Dr. Harris yelled back "There's no telling what kind of damage you'll do to her mind if you do that."

The screaming had momentarily stopped and Jo was yelling in a language Zane didn't recognize. He got the gist from her tone though someone was going to pay dearly. Then the screaming started all over again. "Fuck this! It will take too long to fix this shit." Zane thought as he reached inside a bank of equipment to bring the whole thing to a crashing halt. "Whatever in the hell is going on inside her head Lupo doesn't deserve to have to relive it." No one did from the sound of it. As he grabbed a hold of a circuit board a spark came off the equipment then Zane's scream started echoing Jo's.