Description: A little something about Woody's feelings after being shot. Losing Jordan, among other life experiences has been hard on him. Based on the Song Superman, by Five for Fighting because as soon as I heard this song (for the hundredth time in my life) I thought of Woodrow Hoyt.
Disclaimer: Crossing Jordan is from Tailwind Productions in association with NBC Universal Television Studio; created by Tim Kring (But you already know all that). The lyrics for Superman is © Five for Fighting.
Superman
I can't stand to fly, I'm not that naïve. I'm just out to find the better part of me.
Woody sighed as he flung his keys on the desk by the door, swinging it shut. He flung his jacket carelessly on the sofa and began unloading his gun and placing it on the table next to his bed. Something his father used to do, which Woody never understood until he had become a cop. He replaced he clothes he was wearing with some more comfortable attire.
Another day, another case solved, another heartbreak. He was beginning to think that life was just one, never-ending, painful circle in which he was trapped for eternity.
He slumped onto the sofa and was about to turn on the television but in its reflection he sees her face. A picture hanging on the wall, her beauty captured in a moment. It was windy the day when he took it, her hair flowing around her face, the black scarf making her appear paler. The adoring mole left of her chin. Her lips formed into her characteristic mischievous grin, her eyes seducing the lens. That was Jordan.
The temptress that Woody loved; it was like playing hopscotch with life. He made one step toward her and she took two steps back. There was no wall to stop her; she just kept on playing.
He let the remote drop from his hands as he had recalled her most recent game. She tugged at his heartstrings, showing off her latest pair of one size too small pants, accenting her buttocks. She asked him how they looked, in front of people who could sense the tension in his voice, "Beautiful Jordan," then a mutter, "simply beautiful." The wicked eyes she flashed.
He would approach her but as soon as he considered it, she would take her first step. He knows the other one is shortly after he calls her on the subject, he steps, she steps. Like a dance.
He wishes that for one moment she forgets her moves and lets him explain how he truly feels about her. How a 'dating relationship' is too immature for the way he feels. He wants to make her understand that the only person he sees in his future is she. He wants to start a family with her. He's always wanted little girls. Little girls with the beauty of Jordan.
I'm more than a bird, I'm more than a plane, more than some pretty face beside a train. And it's not easy to be me
He knows she'll fly.
He remembers L.A. he recalls the kiss she did not receive and the way she did not want to discuss it when they were both back in Boston. He remembers all the cases she was in danger and he came to her aid, he remembers when her brother kidnapped her. He remembers, in one of their more private moments, when she told him of when she was buried alive. He was pained that he did not know her then to protect her. Her thanks for all the times he had pulled her from the rubble were her friendship, and that was all the hope that he had in her.
With a flicker of painful sadness, he remembered how she had told him she loved him, while he was on his deathbed and then how he had pushed her away; his one moment to tame the untamable and he had sent her flying.
He remembered he was hungry, standing from the sofa and going to the refrigerator for something he had eaten yesterday, and the day before. He starved for a good meal, like those his grandmother used to cook when she cared for him during his childhood. He began to wonder if Jordan cooked, or whether she was more of a take out person. With her life style, Woody thought, she seemed more of a to-go type of person.
He suddenly came to a new realization. Though he had known her for quite a few years, there was so much that was a mystery about her. Sure, she was tough, hardheaded, utterly gorgeous, but she was more than what she appeared. No matter how much he wanted to, Woody could not grasp all of her complexities.
He began eating left over Chinese food, but the flavour made him sick. Perhaps it was his unhappy mood combined with unwilling taste buds. He sighed contemplating just how much it sucked to be him right then.
Wish that I could cry, fall upon my knees. Find a way to lie, 'bout a home I'll never see.
His thoughts fermented now. They dwelt on his lack of a mother throughout most of his life. He did not miss her because he did not really remember who she was. Small clips of memory that, as time moves on, even he forgets. He only misses the opportunities he could have had to tell her he loved her. His father had become colder and more distant into his teenaged years. He never told his sons he loved them, or how hard being a cop was on him. Woody wished he would have.
He chucked his meal into the trash.
Woody sighed; his father was his age when he started his family. What does he have in comparison? An apartment, a gun, and a sorry track record for women. He felt his life far from complete from the one he had envisioned.
Day in and day out he worked. He had the career he wanted, but like any mortal man, he wanted more. He wanted that one object of his affection; the one that always seemed out of reach. He wanted Jordan.
It might sound absurd, but don't be naïve. Even heroes have the right to bleed. I may be disturbed, but won't you concede; even heroes have the right to dream. It's not easy to be me.
He recalled pushing her away. How horrible he had felt, but at the same time, slightly rewarding; he had almost given his shooter his just deserts but payment was losing Jordan, perhaps forever. He had made her into a bitter person by his actions; he could not change what he had done. How difficult it was to please everybody. How could he still want her in his life? She pushed back harder than ever now. He felt so incredibly stupid.
If he could he would tell her about his father, how he was always trying to live up to his unspoken expectation, which he could never seem to reach. Not until he was chief, senator, or president. He would tell her that he had taken a step backward in his father's books by hunting down his shooter. That would please her, to know that she regarded her in the same field as his deceased father. To know that every day he was eaten up by guilt.
This feud, all because they had taken opposite ends of a very huge disagreement. He wanted to make her understand but he found it difficult to be in the same room as her let alone speak with her.
He picked up the phone. He fiddled with it in his hands for a moment. Would she be at home or work? Would she appreciate his call? Probably not, he wanted to confront her on a number of issues. However, he would not risk her game taking its toll.
Up, up and away, away from me, well, it's alright. You can all sleep sound tonight. I'm not crazy or anything.
He put the phone back in its cradle. Calling her would be the second stupidest thing he had ever done. He turned to his love of God when he felt most lost, times such as these. He got up, stretched his tired limbs and went into his bedroom. He pulled a string of beads out of his bedside drawer and sat on the side of his bed. He prayed in silence.
Though his father was a cold and distant man, Woody never failed to assume his role. When he died, Woody was there to pick up the pieces. While raising his younger brother, Calvin, he finished school, and he became a deputy in his native Wisconsin town. It was sometimes incredibly difficult for him, being sixteen, but his father had raised him a Catholic, and it was to God he always turned.
He prayed for the victimized souls trapped in purgatory, easing the mourners and giving criminals justice. He prays for many things that sway the world. He is thankful, forgiving, guilty and loving. He prays for the strength to continue what he does. He prays for Jordan. He prays for God's will.
However, today, he feels his prayers are weak. He doubts his faith, as happens in times of worry or hopelessness. He wonders if what he does is right, he contemplates giving up on Jordan, he wonders if God is there for him, holding him steadfast.
Deep in his heart, he knows.
I can't stand to fly, I'm not that naïve. Men weren't meant to ride with clouds between their knee.
He places his prayer beads next to his bed with more forced that he had intentioned, wondering why he bothers. Sometimes he does not feel God's presence in his life, a never-ending hell. He returns to the living room, with nothing to do. He is beyond boredom, the things he owns no longer amuse him. Television, a form of entertainment once an exotic escape from life's trials, he finds branded with a thin layer of sour entertainment.
He feels the scar in his side; the bullet wound that tore his life out of perspective. He wonders if he will ever retrieve that degree of normalcy he has hoped for so long.
Taking the picture of Jordan from the wall, he holds it in his dry hands. This is all he wants, not God, not TV, not anything else, but Jordan. A shaky breath escapes him as he wonders what she is doing. He wonders why she feels the necessity to run from him.
Deep inside, however, he knows. Her life, riddled with as much torture as his, she does not believe that she will ever truly commit to anybody. Woody weeps at the thought that she could torture herself for her entire life for a cause so worthless.
His tear drops to the glass, shortly warping his view of her dark eyes, until he wipes it tenderly away. Why does he do this to himself? Why must he constantly put Jordan and his father in the same boat ahead of him? Trying to impress a dead person and a person unwilling to love has been the hardest thing in his life. Why does he choose the hardest path?
I'm only a man in a silly red sheet, digging for kryptonite on this one way street. Only a man in a funny red sheet, looking for special things inside of me, inside of me, inside of me, yeah inside of me, inside of me.
He wipes his eyes and re-hangs the picture on the wall, assuring it is as strait as the Wisconsin horizon. Standing there for a moment, he reflects on his past with Jordan, the times they laughed. Those were the times he missed the most. Her laughter was like hearing the voice of angels. He shook his head. 'I'm being silly,' he thought.
He was in a nostalgic mood, the type of mood that brought pictures of his past out. He began to dig for a box in his cupboard, a box with pictures. When he found it, he sat on the sofa and began slowly flipping through them. Those pictures he had inherited from his father, family things passed down to him because everybody figured Calvin could not care enough to treat them with high regard.
He flipped through pictures of his mother, the beautiful woman that was a flash of memory. A woman he had cried over but, at the time, did not understand why.
On to the family pictures of his brother, and him in their youth, moments captured by uncles and aunts, perhaps their father in Kewaunee. His teenaged years, which were now a memory, Christmases, Thanksgiving, Easters from the years passed. After his father died, Calvin and Woody nearly drifted from the photo book entirely but for a few images of Woody, grown into a man, in a deputy's uniform, a proud look of accomplishment on his face.
Annie. His heart skipped a beat. He had known she would be there, smiling sweetly up to him, her golden locks framing her perfect face. There was one of them together, him, in civilian clothes, his arms around her thin waist. She was in a dress, posing for the image. He could see happiness radiating from her face. No wonder, they were close to engagement at that point. She could have been the one to fix his past. She picked up the pieces but he left them both broken hearted.
Sometimes, he figured, that Annie was the one chance at happiness and that he had blown his opportunity. The only chance he had now was to move on. Even if he went back to Kewaunee, Annie would not take him back. Too much had happened to make him even consider something of the sort.
He wondered what Annie could possibly have seen in him to make her fall in love. It could not be his job; it was that which made Woody run away. The words of her father rung in his ears like an echoing train whistle, 'Woody, you know for a fact that she could do better'n a cop. Now, I know you're only doin' what's right by your father's terms. He was a good man. But look at what happened to him. My Annie can do better'n that. She needs more stability'n you.' He would never forget those words; they had cut him to the very core of his being.
Nevertheless, he wanted to find that something special that attracted Jordan, and he hoped that she did not mind him being a cop.
I'm only a man in a funny red sheet. I'm only a man looking for a dream. I'm only a man in a funny red sheet. And it's not easy, It's not easy to be me.
He grabbed for the phone again. Without thinking, he dialed her number; digits he knew by memory.
"Cavanaugh."
"Jordan," his voice was almost a whisper.
"Woody?" Hers grew tense and guarded.
He sighed, wishing she would understand for once. He wanted to plead with her but words would never be enough. "I miss you," he admitted instead.
There was a long silence on the line. He waited for her response with intense hope. He prayed in the moment.
"Then let's get a drink. I'm off in twenty."
Woody relaxed, even smiling a little, "That would be great."
He hung the phone back on the cradle, he stood, and grabbing his casual jacket and his keys, he left his apartment. He had gotten his wish. She had taken a step in the other direction. Though they still were not face-to-face, it was an effort for which Woody commended her. He only wondered how long it would be until she turned around.
A/N: Well, now, tell me what you think!