Title: Questions With No Good Answers

Author: Jedi Buttercup

Disclaimer: The words are mine; the world is not. I claim nothing but the plot.

Rating: PG.

Summary: It was going to give Jack a headache, if he thought about it much longer. 600 words.

Spoilers: Eureka 4.2 "A New World"

Notes: I'm not sure I like where this season is going. At all. Just so you know.

Jack understood why Allison didn't want their old world back. He really did. To someone who'd always seen Kevin's autism as a prison trapping her child inside, a fresh start without that hindrance would seem like a miracle. He'd picked that up clear enough over the course of the long year the Artefact had affected the kid, not that he'd understood what was going on most of that time. But Allison was deluding herself if she thought the six time travelers could keep their secret to themselves, long term.

Kevin just thought his mother had got a little clingy, so far. But he had noticed something was up. As had several of the other geniuses orbiting their lives. They were lucky Fargo's accidental positronic lightning storm had distracted everyone long enough for the dislocated group to begin piecing their new histories together, not to mention that Sherriff Andy's memory had been wiped before he could tell anyone else what he'd discovered. Tess wasn't likely to let Jack's hesitation fly for much longer; and it had to be even weirder for Henry, what with his unexpected new wife.

Jack didn't know what he was going to say when Tess came back in the morning to discuss moving into the bunker. How was he supposed to feign not having any doubts, when as far as he was concerned they'd just spent several months proving that he couldn't make her happy? How long before Grace realized that her husband's memory was full of holes when it came to their relationship? How long before Jo's understandably raw emotions, Fargo's lack of experience, and Allison's overcompensation would trip them up in their positions at G.D.? Or Zane or Vince or any of the other people they'd said weird things to began to put clues together?

And that wasn't even touching on the matter of Dr. Grant. Jack wasn't about to forgive and forget, not after what the guy had tried to do to him-- but sanction was such an ugly word. He couldn't abandon anyone to that, even if there was a way to ensure Grant wouldn't be able to take the other travelers down with him. Which meant Jack was going to have to do something else that went against the grain: aid and abet a fugitive- to the tune of getting the others to help him set up ID, residence, employment, bank account, and other records of a modern life. Something had to be done to anchor the guy in the present before his unexplained existence tripped alarms at the D.O.D.

Maybe S.A.R.A.H. could help; Jack was fairly sure they could swear her to secrecy, between his status as her owner and Fargo's as her original programmer. Once he opened that Pandora's box of information, though, there'd be no closing it again. What other changes were lurking in this new timeline to ambush him unawares?

For example, who had survived in this world that died in the other? Who had died that he remembered saving? Who'd left town? Or had arrived to befriend a Sherriff Jack Carter that no longer existed? Whose roles were different, besides the ones he'd already discovered?

It was going to give him a headache, if he thought about it much longer. But it couldn't be avoided. Lives were at stake, which left Jack in a very familiar place for this town: out of his depth, facing impossible odds, not sure who he could count on-- yet determined to succeed.

Call it 'Operation Fake It 'Til You Make It'... and he'd better begin as he meant to go on.

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