A/N: Yes, the hopeless romantic in me refused to let me sleep until I'd given them a better ending. *sigh* I'm still extremely disgruntled by the episode, but I hope this chapter will make it clearer why. I don't care that Jo's not going to Titan, but Zane's big romantic gesture – you know, the one from Up in the Air, where he listens to her, understands her dreams and wants to help her achieve them? – became a farce last night when she decided she didn't really care. It's one thing to separate them, another to make a mockery of the romance. But obviously, people can disagree, and it's perfectly okay with me if you don't see it the same way. Tomorrow I will go back to writing my ghost story, in which my heroine would never be so callous! And meanwhile, my title is no longer exactly accurate. :-)

The Story Needs Some Mending*

She followed him down the hallway.

She spent a few minutes in the kitchen first, alternately opening and closing her hand around the ring, staring at it, then hiding it from sight, then staring at it again. He hadn't sounded angry, not really. But had she ever heard Zane angry? Did she know what an angry Zane would sound like?

"Can we talk about this?" she asked at his bedroom door.

He was in the middle of changing his clothes. He turned, t-shirt still dangling from one hand.**

"What's to talk about?" he asked. "I got it wrong. You said being an astronaut was every kid's dream and I thought that meant it was yours. It was stupid of me. You should have just told me so."

"Zane, I was – I was flattered that you thought I could do it. It was a huge compliment, I understood that."

"And I was right." He pulled his t-shirt on over his head, and crossed to the bed. Dropping down onto the edge, he grabbed a running shoe. "Like I said, though, if I'd realized you didn't care, I wouldn't have wasted your time."

"It wasn't a waste." She was pressing the ring between her fingers, so hard that the stone was hurting her hand. "But it would be wrong for me to take a place from someone who really wanted it, who really had been dreaming about this their whole life."

He grinned at her, but there was no humor behind the motion of his lips. "I get it, Lupo. Just like it's wrong for me to be taking a place away from someone like Parrish, someone who's never screwed up, never gone to prison, someone who's worked hard and been a good boy all his life. Someone who deserves this."

"I'm not saying that!" she protested.

"Yeah, you are." He was tying the laces of his shoe with quick, efficient motions. "I guess I'm not quite the selfless saint that you are, though. Titan's gonna be a blast."

"Zane, you deserve this. You worked hard for it," Jo tried again.

"Right," he agreed. "But harder than Parrish? Harder than the other five hundred and eighty candidates who didn't make it? I doubt it." He tugged on his other shoe.

Jo pressed her lips together. "I don't know what to say, Zane. I didn't mean to make you feel bad about getting in."

"Oh, I don't." He shook his head. "I don't."

"Then. . ." She looked down at the ring in her hand. "Then what? You accused me of not caring about your feelings, so what are you talking about?"

From the edge of the bed, Zane just looked at her for a minute. It wasn't a glare, but the disgust in it made her feel stupid and shy and awkward and like she wanted to be anywhere but where she was. "I'm talking about us, Lupo. I'm talking about this little friends-with-benefits thing we had going on. I'm talking about what it means for a relationship when hey, one person is headed a billion miles away from the other, and it's not even a subject of conversation." He shook his head. "But none of that means anything to you, does it? Because this isn't a relationship. Hell, it isn't really even friends with benefits, because we're not friends."

Standing, he crossed to his bedside table, turning his back to her, and picking up his iPod.

She felt a flush of heat, then a flush of cold. "We are friends." The words felt stiff leaving her mouth. She wasn't even sure she'd said them loudly enough that he could hear them.

"No, we're not." He glanced over his shoulder at her. "We were fuck-buddies. That's all. And now we're not even that anymore."

"Because I'm not going to Titan?" she protested. That was so unfair. What if she hadn't gotten in? Would he have dumped her then?

"No." He turned, tucking his iPod into his pocket, the ear buds held in one hand. He looked at her and his eyes were ice. "Because you don't give a shit about me. And, believe it or not -," he paused and chuckled without humor. "- believe it or not, I actually think that I deserve better."

She couldn't find any words. Her mind was just empty.

"Now if you don't mind, I want to go for a run. Gotta be in top condition for Titan, after all."

This was Zane angry, Jo realized.

This, in fact, was Zane furious.

He wasn't like her. He wasn't yelling or arguing. He wouldn't throw things, he wouldn't scream, and there wasn't even a hint of violent energy. He was just coldly, deeply, seriously enraged.

But not just angry.

Hurt.

She took two steps forward and a deep breath. "I hurt you," she said. "I'm sorry."

There was a flash of something in his eyes. Grief? Sorrow? Jo couldn't quite read it, because it was gone too quickly as he shrugged. "No big. Moving on. Do you mind?" he gestured toward the door, but Jo shook her head and stepped even closer.

"I'm from a military family, Zane."

A frown of confusion flickered before he smoothed it away, and drawled, "Surprise. Like I didn't know that."

"A six month deployment is nothing. Six months? Six months is a cakewalk."

He stilled. One more step and she was right in front of him, close enough to touch. She put her hand on his chest, spreading out the fingers. She could feel his warmth, and his heart beating. "Letting you go for six months doesn't mean I don't care about you. It doesn't mean you're not important to me. It's just – it's just what you do when you're military." She wasn't looking at his face, her eyes intent on the t-shirt, on her hand on his t-shirt.

"You are you," she told him, and the words were almost a whisper. She raised her gaze and met his eyes, and with a lift of her chin and a rush of words said, "You don't remember our past, you don't have the feelings for me that you used to have, you don't know what our relationship was like. But you're the same person."

The ring in her other hand felt almost like it was burning her, a sharp stabbing pain, and she held it up to show it to him, turning her hand over, realizing that she'd broken the skin with the pressure and that blood was dripping down her palm. "I would have married you," she said, voice steady. "I would have married you. So don't tell me I don't give a shit."

"Jo, damn it," Zane cursed, seeing the blood.

She shook it off irritably. "It's nothing."

"It's not nothing, it's blood." He grabbed for her hand, trying to force her fingers open to assess the damage.

"It's nothing," she snapped. "I can lose a little blood. I can't – I can't lose you. Not again. Not this way."

"Jo." Her name was a sigh, as he relaxed his grip on her hand. For the first time, the hurt and the confusion showed in his face. "You bailed on us."

"I didn't bail on us," she corrected him. "I bailed on Titan. They're not the same thing."

"You would have let me go." Maybe her uncertainty showed on her face, because he added, "Not to Titan. But to leave Eureka."

She shrugged. "Yes. I would have. But I would have hoped you'd come back."

He didn't answer, just looked at her, and she slid the hand that had been resting on his chest, the uninjured hand, up and up, until she was cupping his cheek. "I admit, I didn't want to do this again. For you, it was starting something new, but for me, it was starting something over. To love you again, already knowing all the different ways we've screwed it up? Yeah, I didn't want to go there. I wanted to keep myself safe. But I've never managed to resist you, never."

"Against your better judgment?" he murmured, almost teasing, bending his head to her.

"Oh, definitely," she agreed, managing a faint wry smile as the relief rushed through her. "And it turns out there are even new ways to screw us up. Who knew?"

"We're not screwed up," he said, taking her mouth, kissing her until she melted against him, until she was flushed and trembling and breathless. "We're just getting started."

*Sara Bareilles, Fairytale

**Just because shirtless Niall is always a good thing!