DISCLAIMER: None of the characters from Crossing Jordan are mine...they just use my brain as a playroom.

Son of a bitch.

That's the only phrase that she could muster through her mind as she gripped the bed sheets tightly around her body. "Where are you going?" she asked the figure, sitting at the end of her bed, the figure who was calmly putting on his pants and shoes like nothing had just happened.

She watched as he slowly rose and straightened his shoulders. Without turning to look at her, he replied, "I'm leaving." Raking his fingers through his hair, he continued, "And I don't mean I'm leaving to go to work. I'm leaving. For good. From Boston."

Jordan was having a hard time absorbing the new information. "Why?" she whispered. "I thought, um, after last night...I mean...." Her voice trailed off. She couldn't trust it to go much further. It kept catching in the back of her throat.

Abruptly, he turned and looked straight at her. His blue eyes were burning cold, staring a hole straight through her, as if he was examining and weighing her very soul. "No, Jordan. Not this time. And not ever again. I'm tired of chasing you. I'm tired of wondering if you want to be caught. Hell, I'm to the point of wondering if it's all been worth it...trying to find your mother's killer, trying to break through the emotional walls you've put up around yourself, trying to get you to trust me. I'm not a complicated man. I know what I want in a relationship. I know what I wanted for us. And I'm not going to get that from you. So I'm leaving."

"You're going back to Wisconsin?"

Woody sighed. "No. I'm not going home." He was heading for the door of her apartment and Jordan's legs were having a hard time catching up with him, tripping over the sheet she still had tightly clutched to her body.

"Where..." she began.

Woody turned again and raked his eyes over her, from head to toe. She was tiny, oh so petite. That was one of the first things that attracted him to her. She always looked fragile. That chestnut hair and big brown eyes. The small hands. She looked like she needed someone to protect her. And for the longest time, he thought he was that man. And he did. From killers and lunatics and DAs. The only person he could not protect Jordan from was herself. And he had worn himself out from trying. He knew if he didn't get away, it would eat him alive. So he was pulling trick from Jordan's hat. This time Woody was doing the running.

"I don't know," he answered softly, his eyes finally meeting hers. "I'll let you know when I get there."

"Will ... you ... be back?" she asked. He could see the confusion welling up in her eyes.

"No." And with that, he was gone. No good-byes, no lingering kiss, no "See you later, last night was great, Sweetheart." He just stepped out into the hall and slammed the door. Jordan could hear his footsteps quickly retreating to the elevators.

The plane leveled and the seatbelt light switched off. Woody leaned back and closed his eyes. He hated flying. Well, no, he grimaced to himself. It wasn't the flying, it was the possibility of crashing and burning he had a hard time dealing with.

And if that thought wasn't enough, he was having a hard time dealing with what he had done last night. Several times last night, if you were keeping count.

It started out with a typical evening at The Pogue. Jordan was barmaid and everyone was there...Nigel, Bug, Lily, the whole crew. It started out as a fun evening, until almost closing time and Jordan asked him to dance. She often did. He went willingly. Dancing with her was slow torture. Feeling her in his arms, only to have her pull away at the end of the song. He hoped she wouldn't pick a slow song, but his luck wasn't running with him that night. It was a slow song. She wrapped his arms around her waist and looped her arms around his neck. She moved closer to him than in the past. "Does she know?" he had wondered, briefly entertaining the thought that somehow Nigel had found out through his computer wizardry that Woody was throwing in the towel and leaving. "Is she trying to get me to stay?"

At the end of the song, she didn't move away. She snuggled closer and asked him to come back to her apartment with her for a nightcap, please? He had been torn. He knew he shouldn't, but he couldn't resist those eyes. Reluctantly he had agreed. "No games, Jordan," he had warned, half- expecting her to get him in her apartment and start discussing new leads on her mother, or James, or where her father was.

She had simply looked into his eyes and smiled. "Girl Scouts honor," she had pledged.

It got real blurry after that. The apartment. The kiss that had led to another and another and another....the smell of her perfume...the feel of her hands on his chest as she had slowly unbuttoned his shirt. He had tried to stop her, knowing that she and he both would have serious regrets in the morning. But when Jordan had a goal in mind, heaven and hell couldn't stop her. And that night her goal was getting him in her bed, for whatever reason she had in her mind. "Give up, Farm Boy," she had teased, leading him to her bed in the alcove. And he did. He gave up. Totally surrendered to the months of sexual frustration and tension that had been building. Why shouldn't he? It would be his last chance to hold her, feel her against him, smell her, run his fingers through her hair. He would at least have the memory, if he didn't have the girl. So he gave her back kiss for kiss and touch for touch until the passion rose to the point she moaned against his mouth. Without a second thought, he tumbled her down on her bed and anchored her there with his hips as he proceeded to finish unbuttoning and discarding her blouse. With deft fingers, he had slid his hand to her back and unhooked her bra. "Are you sure, Jordan?" he had asked, softly whispering the question against her lips. She had nodded and lifted her arms, allowing him to discard the scrap of lace.

He had taken his own sweet time, tracing her body with his fingertips, committing to memory every indentation, the spots where she was ticklish, the spots where she would catch her breath and moan softly. He wanted to remember them all. For all he knew, that would be all he had for the years to come. He had slowly slid down her body and unfastened her jeans and pulled them off, along with that other scrap of lace that served as her underwear. She had fumbled with his belt and pants...

He had heard stories of earth-shattering sex. Explosive, knock-your-socks- off, lovemaking, but had doubted them all until last night. He could still see her face. He had committed that to memory, too. The catch in her voice as she came. The way she clung to him as they both climaxed. He had been amazed that she was trembling. "Hold me," she had asked.

"I'll catch you on your way down," he replied, holding her close as she floated back down to earth, taking him with her.

"Excuse me, sir," are you okay?" asked the air hostess. "You look a little peaked. Are you air sick?"

Woody almost laughed in the young woman's face. "No, I'm fine," he replied...Okay, maybe he lied. He wasn't "fine." He wasn't. But he would be one day, maybe. As soon as he could get the vision of those warm brown eyes filling with tears out of his mind.