jedibuttercup

PG, B:tVS/EUReKA; 1500 words. (For August 16; part of No Place Like Eureka; SPOILERS).

Of course the biggest ego in Eureka would have to stage his comeback in the middle of one of G.D.'s craziest crises to date.

Title: What Seems to Be
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not. I claim nothing but the plot.
Rating: PG
Summary: Of course the biggest ego in Eureka would have to stage his comeback in the middle of one of G.D.'s craziest crises to date. 1500 words.

Spoilers: B:tVS 5.05 "No Place Like Home"; Eureka through 3.14 "Ship Happens"
Challenge:

twistedshorts - August, Day 16
Notes: Moving the Dawn in Eureka storyline along a little more, though she doesn't make an actual appearance. (I love these guys, I really do.)

Could Stark have possibly chosen a worse time to pull his little reappearing act? Jack had to wonder; though he couldn't keep the wry smile from his face as he turned his worried attention away from Zane to glance over at the other occupied corner of the infirmary. Of course the biggest ego in Eureka would have to stage his comeback in the middle of one of G.D.'s craziest crises to date.

Allison and Henry had both been especially distracted the last day or so; and no wonder, what with the Kim factor and the added worry over whether the time shift had done any permanent damage to Stark. The passing out seemed to have been a simple consequence of the jolt to Stark's system; the incident that had sent his daughter running out of the building in tears (which Jack knew about mainly because she'd turned up at his house to cry on Zoe's shoulder) was something else altogether. They were keeping him under observation until they could figure out what might be causing it.

Jack turned his attention back to Zane's case in time to catch Jo wigging out, and talk her down from the first, drastic action she wanted to take on her boyfriend's behalf. Blaming the cloned organic computer was a little hasty, he thought, and besides-- it seemed too much like a person to just kill out of hand. Too much like Kim, which made him feel uneasy on several levels. The simplest was that it would devastate Henry-- again-- and he wanted to avoid that if at all possible.

Once Jo was calmer, he sent her down to the observation room with a promise to join her in a minute, then took a quick detour by Stark's bed. He didn't know when he'd next have a chance to talk to the man Zoe insisted on referring to as his 'frenemy', and it was the first time he'd caught him awake since his unexpected reappearance. He'd missed the give and take of their arguments, and couldn't resist the opportunity to provoke one now that it was possible again.

Stark looked up from the tablet computer he was tapping away on at Jack's approach, and threw him an amused look. "Sheriff," he said, with a slight nod, then paused. "It is still Sheriff, isn't it? That Mayor nametag of Henry's caught me a little off guard."

Jack smirked. "Yeah. There was this whole thing with a high school science project, a second sun, and my sister throwing a write-in campaign; you'll have to ask him for the details later. I got myself fired a week later, but as it turns out the mayor has to actually approve when the Department of Defense tries to fire a peace officer..." He trailed off with a shrug.

"Damn. The town almost got rid of you, and I wasn't even here to enjoy it," Stark sighed ostentatiously. Then he drew his eyebrows together a little. "Did you say sister? Please tell me the Carter infestation hasn't spread."

"Not to worry, she's come and gone already," Jack replied. "Pregnant with twin boys, actually, but her-- I don't know what to call him, her partner in crime? I don't think they're actually getting married-- anyway, he tracked her down here and dragged her off again. Smart guy; he's kind of interested in settling here for a few years, if G.D. ever needs an epidemiologist. Allison can vouch for his qualifications."

Stark made a production of shuddering at that. "The very fact that Allison can vouch for his qualifications suggests that even being a Carter by proxy's enough to endanger Eureka; between you and your daughter, I think the town quota's full enough already."

"One could say the same about Starks," Jack fired back. "But every time the town gets rid of you, you just keep turning up like a bad penny."

Stark's amused expression slipped a little at that. "Speaking of Starks..." he said, cautiously.

Jack nodded; yeah, that was the other reason he'd wanted to stop and talk for a moment. "She's fine," he said, casually. "Bunked down with Zoe last night; they were up watching tearjerkers and eating ice cream until after midnight. Normally I'd tell S.A.R.A.H. to cut them off at curfew, but what with the whole zombified tower-building thing this week and your miraculous return, I thought I'd cut them a little slack."

Unspoken went the question: do you remember her yet?

Stark let out a frustrated sigh. "I didn't mean to upset her, but when she came in-- for a moment there, I genuinely didn't know who she was. It was as though all my memories of her were a third-hand recording, like they had happened to someone else; they didn't feel real. I have most of them back now, but still nothing before the age of eight or so; I clearly remember storing something in the spare bedroom one day, and the next walking in to talk to Dawn about not slapping boys at school no matter how rude they were to Kevin. I'm not sure which bothers me more-- that the disconnect is there at all, or that I didn't find it unusual at the time."

"And... you think this means she's not actually your daughter?" Jack frowned, trying to understand. "Isn't it more logical that something to do with the time device scrambled your memories?"

Stark's request for an investigation was going to have to come behind all the mess attached to the Columbus' return, not to mention the paperwork for his own reappearance, but Jack would have to follow up on it sooner or later, and he wanted to understand the man's motivation a little more before diving into it. He knew how Stark felt about his kids; he'd seen how he was with not only Dawn, but also Kevin Blake, and Callister during the android's brief return to the town. He was as rabidly defensive of them, in his own egotistical scientist way, as Jack was of Zoe. So when he tried to imagine his own reaction to the first few years of his memories of Zoe disappearing, and came up more on the 'obviously, my brain must be faulty' end of things rather than 'she can't be my daughter'-- it was clear something else was going on.

"About as logical as the idea that I'm not actually your Eureka's Nathan Stark at all, and got here from some other nearly identical reality," Nathan said with a snort.

Jack pondered that idea for a moment. "Could that seriously have happened?" he asked. It was hard to tell sometimes whether Stark-- or any other scientist for that matter, including Tess, though Tess tended to look cuter doing it than Stark did-- was actually being serious with him when they stated these ridiculous things, or whether they intended to sound ridiculous, and expected him to scoff along with them. If that were the case, it had just whizzed right over his head. Again.

Stark shrugged. "It's possible, I suppose. Not that it would matter, if it were true, since I'd be stuck in this Everett branch regardless. What I meant, though, is that it's not just that some of my memories are 'missing'-- because they're not. I remember everything that's happened in my life since Dawn was supposedly born. It's just that she's not in about eight years' worth of those memories, nor is the woman who's supposed to be her mother. She just appeared in my life about nine years ago, from my perspective, and no one questioned it-- not even me. I've compared my recall with Allison's in several cases, and in all of them, we remember two distinctly different sequences of events: one without Dawn, in my case, and one with Dawn, in hers."

"Okay," Jack drawled, thinking that over. "That's creepy. So you're thinking more along the lines of deliberately altered memories?"

Stark nodded, solemnly. "Don't worry, I'm not planning on disowning Dawn, no matter what the tests show. Whatever reason they had-- whoever they are-- for inserting her into my life, and going to all the trouble to make everyone believe she belongs there, I fully intend to keep her. I just want to know why."

Jack still thought the conspiracy theory angle a little egocentric and insane even for Stark; but the man made a decent argument for it, and hell, it wasn't like a little DNA test would hurt anything. If he'd been wrong, then they could simply move on to the next potential explanation, no harm done.

"Okay," he said. "I have to go help Jo question Kim-- the computer, I mean-- so. Keep me posted, all right? She can keep staying with us for now-- that'll give you and Allison more time to get reacquainted, anyway."

"Thanks, Carter," Stark replied, with a more genuine smile. "See you around."

Jack couldn't resist smiling back at that. "Yeah," he said, as he turned to go. "You will."

-~-

(x-posted to

twistedshorts)