Notes: This is a little idea I had about Eureka. I appreciate the reviews I've gotten so far! Thanks! And this is a Season 1-3 timeline story.

Standard disclaimer stuff: characters owned by someone else. Not me. I don't think there will be any additions of my own in this storyline.

Jack came home right on schedule. Turned out that the day in Eureka law enforcement involved not much aside from office work. Tess did her usual, meeting him in the living room and kissing him. The cop in Jack immediately detected hesitance.

"Bad day today?" Jack asked.

"I've had better. You didn't make it out to GD today, did you?"

"I'm thrilled to say I haven't been there all week, thank you very much. Should I have come up?"

"Uh, no."

"You realize you just said 'oh hell yeah, you should have an office at GD', you know that, right?"

"One beer, coming up," Sarah said. Tess grabbed it from the refrigerator door and handed it to Jack, who had taken a seat in the living room.

"What happened at GD today, Tess? Is this some secret Section 5 thing that you need to tell me but you can't?" Jack went from his usual good mood after an uneventful day to cringing about some disaster lurking on the horizon.

"Oh, no, no. How familiar are you with Eureka's mental health facilities?"

"Enough to know that the psychiatrist was a spy for some D.C. suit and no one knows where she is now. Remember Nathan Stark?"

"Of course I do."

"He had her put in some deep, deep hole. If she's back, I have to know. That woman is trouble, and not necessarily the GD kind of trouble. Real trouble."

"I talked to Fargo after I saw someone come out of Alison's office and head out of the building. She's interviewing replacements."

"Why is that a problem? Anyone who can help keep the psychos in this town under control is my partner."

"Yeah," Tess said, "partner isn't exactly the word I'd use. But you could say you were partners with one… with the leading candidate actually. Quite a while ago."

"I never had a shrink as a partner anytime in my career."

"Yeah, you did. You didn't catch fugitives though. You made a daughter."

"Abby is in town… interviewing for that job? How the hell did you find that out?"

"Zoe showed me her picture. Multiple doctorates, I have a pretty good memory. I saw her, then I threatened Fargo to spill his guts."

"Oh, so standard GD operating procedure. Good to know some things haven't changed out there. Why now though, she's got no reason to come here. Zoe's not coming back, she loves Harvard way too much."

"I did a little checking and didn't get too far. Abby was on a list of candidates. Jack, you haven't told me everything about her. Maybe now's the time to figure this out. Zoe told me she came to town once."

"That's been a long time ago. It was after Zoe's first year here. Abby and I had a deal that Zoe would go back to Los Angeles and I didn't want to let go."

"What exactly does she do now?"

"Private practice in L.A. Can't be for the government money."

"Did she do research?"

"Early, she did some. She always wanted to have the office and the couch. That's no reason to come here."

"She told you about psychiatric projects?"

"Statistics. Remember, it's the only math real people need. I didn't have to understand it to recognize it."

"Then why?"

"If I knew that, I'd be getting her out of town." Jack downed the beer and cocked his arm back to throw the glass. Tess's hand on his forearm stopped the shot.

"Talk."

"If Zoe was still here, I'd say fine, come on up. She's not and she won't be for years, if at all. There's no reason for Abby to come here now. This is my home now, not hers. It's just like her to sneak in and sneak out and keep under my radar."

Tess paused for a second. She thought quickly about telling Jack the fact she knew from her own medical interview – the process for any medical doctor, including psychiatrist, was three days, not just one.

"Why don't you call her and ask? That way you can hear it from her. Maybe there's a good reason she's here."

"Not tonight," Jack said. "I'm too pissed off to see straight right now."

"What do you have to do tomorrow?"

"I want to stay home, but I have to go out with Ranger Tom. It's the Sheriff's yearly forestry update. I'll be out in the woods being eaten alive by bugs all day. Jo's in charge."

"Why don't you put it off and stay home?"

"Because I already put it off for a week, hoping the weather would cool off and get a little less humid. The mosquitos settle down some then, but no such luck and tomorrow's the last day I can do it."

Tess remembered her medical interview. She knew she qualified as a GD doctor during the second day. Day three wasn't so much an interview as it was for filling out paperwork. If Abby made the grade, she would know on Thursday. Fargo's information, that time was short and a hire had to be made, told her that Abby had already passed the test and the process was a formality, barring any DOD issues.

Jack spent Thursday in the woods while Jo was officially Acting Sheriff in his absence. Tess forgot one detail in the hiring process, which for her happened in Café Diem under rather tense circumstances. All new personnel had to be introduced to the Sheriff. Most of the time, the meeting was a formality, with a nod and a "hello, welcome to town" followed by running off to fix the latest disaster. Tess's hiring was an emergency because of the Columbus' approach and her admittance to practice medicine was a distant afterthought, which only happened after she was officially (and really) made head of Section 5.

The procedure didn't escape Alison. She knew Jack wouldn't be in the office, so Jo would sign off on the Sheriff's paperwork. At 3:40 in the afternoon, Jo got an email from Alison, which was directed to all GD section heads, the Mayor, and the Sheriff, concerning the new Chief of Mental Health. For half an hour, she sat at her desk with her phone in hand, wondering whether to call her boss and tell him what was about to hit town. Finally, she hit the button and made the call.

"Jo," Carter said, "tell me something bad has happened! Save me from being devoured."

"Yeah, something's happened. You might want to quit cursing nature and come to town."

"What's wrong? Explosion, fire, bug attack?"

"Alison just sent an email to everyone. Your ex-wife is coming to work here."

"I heard she was here, Tess saw her at the office yesterday. Can you handle it?"

"Are you sure?"

"I don't want to spend another night in my own cell."

"Carter, I'm sorry."

"Not your fault. We're 20 minutes from our cars. When does she come to the office for your signature?"

"5:00. Are you coming?"

"I'll deal with this in private. After they're gone, call me and tell me where her house is. She won't be running the bed and breakfast like Beverly did."

"That's in the email. She'll be seeing patients at GD and at a new office in town. And she's getting assistants."

"What?" Jack screamed. "She's becoming a department?"

"Apparently so. Two psychiatrists under her and four research assistants. Carter, it sounds like she's not coming here to be the town shrink."

"I can't even get you a decent pay raise and my ex-wife comes in and builds her own little domain. Any mention of me in there?"

"No, aside from a few customizations, it's the standard new hire form letter."

"Thanks, Jo."

Jack called the forestry survey complete, which it basically was anyway, and headed back to the smart house. Tess hadn't made it home yet, so he showered, applied bug bite spray, and cleaned up. At 5:10, Jo called with the address, which didn't surprise Jack in the least – the house was next to Alison's. Abby had not started moving into the house, so Jack let it go for the night and went home.

Friday brought a much cooler day in Eureka, much to Jack's dismay of being in the forest in 90 degree heat being told about things he didn't want to know on a normal day. Jo brought Vinspressos for the morning caffeine jolt, and aside from a disturbance at Tesla High that Jo handled, calm ensued for most of the day. Jack was finishing a report when Henry popped into the office to find out what had happened.

"How's NASA?" Jack asked.

"Nothing better than a shuttle launch from inside the VIP area. I'm gonna miss those things."

"Listen, I got in late last night. When I checked my email, I found a note from Alison. Is she serious?"

"Apparently so."

"How is Tess taking it?"

"Better than me. She saw Abby here on Wednesday and told me about it."

"How about you?"

"We're about to find out," Jack said as he looked over Henry's shoulder. Abby was ready to start the confrontation.

"Call me if you need anything," Henry said as he left the office.

"Hello, Jack. Surprised to see me here?" Abby took the seat Henry vacated.

"Kinda. Come here to twist the knife a bit?"

"Excuse me?"

"Abby, this is home to me now. I thought we established that the last time you were here. We haven't had a town shrink in a couple years."

"You do now. It's a chance for me to get what I wanted early in my career."

"You wanted money, you made that pretty clear to me."

"I have money now. I'd like to do some good."

"So you applied for a long-empty job in a town in southeast Oregon where your ex-husband just happens to be the law?"

"That's not how it happened. I put in an application, so to speak, for jobs closer to here when Zoe was here. The DOD finally called."

"And so you're here. Wonderful."

"Jack, I'm not just here to be the town psychiatrist. I'll be doing research too."

"Don't research me."

"I thought we split on better terms than this. You were dying because of some thing you put on. You need to be a little less hostile."

"I'm finally putting everything behind me and now this comes up. I've tried for the last year, since I remarried by the way," Jack said as he showed his left hand, "to cut out my piece of the world. I don't have to take a back seat to my job or your job or your patients or anything else, and that's despite the fact that Tess is in charge of the most secret part of GD. I'm happy now. Don't screw that up for me." Jack grabbed his keys and headed out of the office.