A/N: I do not, of course, own Eureka or any of its characters but this is now the fifth story of an alternate Eureka time-line and really, you'll just be confused if you haven't read the others. They are: Better Late Than Never, An Australian Werewolf in Eureka, The B.O.U.S. Problem, and The Buccaneers of Buzz.

I tried to write a quick soap-opera digest style summary of what happened in those stories, but it got complicated fast. The shortest possible version is that Jo and Zane are now engaged and the time-travelers are no longer in danger of being sanctioned.

And speaking of complicated - my outline for this story is rather insanely layered, and yet still not fully detailed, so I'm not sure how this is going to go. But I find reviews extremely motivating, so please do R&R. Without the positive feedback, I'm likely to spend my time reading textbooks and writing research papers and getting As in all my classes…hmm, what an idea.

Chapter One

The phone rang and Jo grabbed it quickly, glancing at the clock on her kitchen wall rather than at the caller ID. It was just a little after seven, and the second time the phone had rung this morning. Her dad must be calling back. Well, she had sprung a lot on him in that first conversation. He'd probably finally gotten over the shock enough to think of some questions.

"Hey, big sis!"

"Rob!" Jo almost spilled the coffee she'd just poured. "Isn't it the middle of the night where you are?"

"So I hear you're getting married."

"How did Dad find you so fast? I swear, I hung up the phone not twenty minutes ago!"

"Oh, you know Dad. He has his ways. Tell me about the man who thinks he's going to marry my sister. How come you haven't mentioned him before?" The phone line was a little static-y, but considering that Jo's brother Rob was probably half the planet away from Eureka, the connection was remarkably clear - clear enough that Jo could hear the skepticism in his voice.

She grinned at the phone, wishing they had a video connection, so she could actually see him. It had been weeks since she'd spoken to Rob, the oldest of her three brothers. They exchanged emails as often as possible, and sometimes, when he was lucky enough to be in a secure location, chatted over IM for hours, but phone calls were few and far between, and the best were when they could use video-conferencing. At that, she spoke to him the most of all of them: Nick and Marco, the twins, were in Special Forces in Afghanistan and if she could reach them once every few months she considered herself lucky.

"You'll like him," Jo promised her brother, finally answering his question. Briefly, she wondered if that was true: her family kind of had a thing for military discipline and Zane was not exactly the disciplined type.

"What about Taggart?"

"You know that ended. That was months and months ago." Jo crossed her fingers, hoping that was true. She never actually had found out the details of her relationship with Taggart, but her dad had asked the same question, so obviously she'd talked about him during the time they'd been together. She wondered if her relatives had ever met Taggart, and whether she'd kept their age-difference a secret.

"Yeah, but - I don't know, isn't this awfully fast?"

"Ooh, the protective brother. This is why I never managed to date in high school. The little-brother gauntlet was too much for every guy I met. But I'm a big girl now, Rob. You don't have to worry. I'm really happy."

"Well, I'm coming to see for myself."

"What?" Jo's eyebrows shot up in surprise. None of her relatives had ever visited Eureka. At least not to her knowledge. It would be nice if she could find out whether they had in this time-line, discreetly. Although the time-travelers no longer had to worry about being sanctioned, they were doing their best to reveal their secret to as few people as possible. At this point, the original six, Grace, Beverly, Zane, Zane's mom, and the president of the United States knew…but they were hoping to stop the story there.

"Dad is, too. We agreed. We both have a little leave coming up. I was going to spend mine in Paris, but I'd rather meet this guy."

Jo bit her lip, although a smile was tugging at her cheeks. "You're picking me over Paris? I'm so flattered."

"Don't be. I'm worried. Did you just meet him?"

"No, of course not." She glanced at the stairs. Zane was still asleep in the bedroom upstairs, sprawled across the bed in a tangled mess of sheets and blankets. Some things had changed between time-lines, but the fact that she woke up faster than he did was not one of them.

Nor was the fact that he was a covers-thief. But unlike the old time-line, where they'd spent months in sleepy tugs-of-war over the blankets before she adapted, she already knew to just snuggle closer and let his body heat keep her warm. It was only one of the ways in which a relationship that should have been very new really wasn't.

"He's been in Eureka for a couple of years. We've known each other for a while."

"You've never mentioned him before. Wait - Zane - what's his last name?"

Jo grimaced. Uh-oh. Sometimes this time-line thing was so hard. What people knew or didn't know was just endlessly confusing. "Donovan," she replied, and although she tried to control her voice, she knew that her pitch had gone higher at the end.

"Donovan? Zane is Zane Donovan? Does Dad know that?" Rob's voice was a mix of amused and exasperated. "I do know - I can't believe - okay, six weeks. I'm making my travel arrangements right now. Well, no, I'll make them as soon as the rest of the world wakes up."

"Six weeks?" Jo's voice definitely squeaked on that. "You're coming here in six weeks? Both you and Dad?"

"Yep. Although once I tell Dad who this guy is, he might be on your doorstep a lot sooner than that."