Okay folks, I know it's been a while since I've written solo, but I've been having way too much fun writing with Nina.
This idea came to me after watching a Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks marathon on some obscure television station one night when sleep was eluding me. I am known for my insomnia, but I do try to redeem this by being creative while my eyelids seem to be glued permanently open.
And I'll be the first to admit, it's a long shot. But I could see it happening and getting only as hopelessly confused as Jordan and Woody could make it.
So let's raise a glass to my latest Woody/Jordan (or Jordan/Woody, if you prefer) escapade and the upcoming season six.
Disclaimer: I don't own 'em. But like Nyn, if they don't behave in season six, I'm staging a coup.
Chapter One
A/N – This chapter is a little scattered, but it sets everything up. Hang on and bear with me….
"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."
--Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, 1872
Mondays after holiday weekends were a bitch for everyone involved. The hospitals were generally overrun with patients who suffered from everything from their own stupidity to being victimized by someone else's stupidity.
Which meant the Boston police department was also working at maximum capacity to sort out the stupidity and the reasons behind it. What happened? Who was to blame? Who was to be jailed and who was to be let go?
The holiday domino theory came into full play in this, of course, as sometimes man's inhumanity to man, coupled with man's stupidity, resulted in the most permanent of damages: death. Garret sighed and clicked out of his e-mail. This day after New Year's was no different. The hospitals, the police department, and the morgue were all working at full capacity. Death didn't stop for the holiday and now he had to tell his already over-worked staff that overtime and double-shifts were going to be the normal routine for the next several days.
"Can't we catch a break?" grumbled Bug, coming out of autopsy one. He had planned to spend the day after New Year taking down his Christmas tree and the other remnants of the holiday. He was scheduled to be off. He had plans to spend a good chunk of that time with Lily…exploring the new aspects of their relationship. Being back at the morgue was not in his plans for today.
Instead a call from Nigel had pulled him out of bed at an hour when Bug was sure that God himself wasn't awake yet. At least not awake and functioning.
"It's the holiday, Buggles," Nigel replied, as if that statement explained everything. And in a way it did…clearly and succinctly. He followed close behind his friend, scanning the white board to see what case was up next.
"Speaking of break," Lily said, joining them in the hallway, "there's coffee and doughnuts in the break room, if you want some."
"Thanks, Lils," Bug replied with a warm smile. "Did you go get them?"
"I did…before I came to work. Figured some extra caffeine and sugar might be just what everyone needed."
"What we need," Bug began, "is another ME." He threw a pointed look at her empty office.
"Buggles…" Nigel said the name in a warning voice.
"We do….if she isn't back…then what we need…"
"Is another ME. Right." Garret's voice coming from behind broke up the argument. "I have a call into Cambridge. Hopefully they can spare one until I can hire another."
"Another? As in addition to…" Lily began hopefully.
Garret shook his head. "No," he replied softly. "As in the place of." The e-mail he had clicked out of before breaking up the beginning argument in the hall had been from Jordan. On the advice of her lawyers she wasn't coming back to Boston. Even though her name had been cleared, even though Woody had worked overtime behind Lu's back to get any guilt expunged from her record, she couldn't come back home. At least not for a while.
Her lawyers were saying about a year should do it. She was pleading for as much time as she needed. Time to finally grieve JD. Time to regroup. Time to recover herself from the trauma that had been inflicted on her. Time to sort out her feelings for Boston, her job….Woody. She wasn't sure how long she'd be gone…just that it would be a while.
And for everyone to please try and understand. She really had grown up. And sometimes when you grow up, you move away from home.
Garret sighed and ran a hand down his tired face. "She's not coming back."
Three years later…
Jordan had to smile as she walked down the familiar streets of Boston again. It had been a while. Three years to be exact.
Three years since she fled Boston on a hastily arranged flight out of Logan to flee to Washington, DC and try to track down JD's killer and the judge that was behind the reporter's murder. No one but Woody knew exactly where she had gone, because at the time, Woodrow Wilson Hoyt was the only man she trusted and as far as she had known then, the only person that absolutely believed in her complete innocence.
Including herself. Until Jordan had held the evidence in her hands and weighed it, even she wasn't so sure she didn't shoot JD. She had blacked out before. To this day, she couldn't remember everything about her mother's death. JD's murder might not have been any different.
However, it was. JD was murdered, but not by her. It had been a hired hit by a judge who was so conceited he really thought that not only was he above the law, but that he was a law unto himself. Woody had done good. He had taken the evidence and got her cleared.
But a court's judgment of clarity could not rid Jordan of the guilt she had saddled herself with. If she hadn't asked JD to come back to Boston…if she would have left well-enough alone, he might still be alive.
Or maybe not. The judge had been well aware of what JD was trying to uncover. The hit on JD probably would have taken place regardless of where JD was at. But if she hadn't extended the invitation for JD to be her escort at Lily's almost-marriage to Brandeau, at least she wouldn't have found herself as the chief suspect of a murder investigation.
That kind of stuff takes a toll on a girl. And her reputation. Professionally and personally.
A year. Her lawyers said stay out of Boston for a year. Let the collective judicial dust settle. The judge had pled out to spare his family the embarrassment of a trial, so Jordan never faced the glare of the cameras she would have if she did have to testify. But they still advised for her to wait a year…let the story begin to relegate itself from the front page of the newspapers, to the inside…then to the last page…and finally into oblivion.
A year. Three hundred and sixty-five days. Somehow she knew it wasn't going to be enough. So she had e-mailed Garret and simply resigned her post at the morgue. Drifted for a while. From DC to a small town in Maryland. Worked in a hospital there processing the bodies until it became known what her profession was. The state offered her a job.
She took it on the condition she could stay in Somerset County – a place that was largely water and in that aspect not so different from Boston. The main industry was agriculture, but timber and fishing were also big. What wasn't so big were the towns and the pace was slower – something very different from Boston and something that Jordan now craved instead of avoided. So for three years she had resided in Princess Anne, Somerset's county seat. Made friends. Matured some more.
However, she didn't turn her back completely from her past. Woody had flown into see her. On some level, they had reconciled, putting their past in the past. Their future friendship would be just that, a friendship. The distance between Princess Anne and Boston, as well as her new situation in life made sure of that. He returned to Boston and without her there to drag him from one hare-brained situation to the next, he was promoted several times.
Jordan herself had returned to Boston only once during those three years – to attend Bug's and Lily's wedding. Once again, she was Lily's maid of honor. This time she stayed at Garret's house instead of the hotel where the wedding was taking place.
And this time she didn't have an escort.
As soon as Dr. and Mrs. Vejay had left on their honeymoon, Jordan took a taxi to Logan and flew out of Boston again. Up until today, other than phone calls, Christmas cards, and e-mails, she had no physical presence in the city.
But when the morgue faced another staff shift, Garret found himself too tired to train another ME. He simply picked up the phone, called her, and offered Jordan her old job back at more than three times the salary she was making before. She had sucked in a breath and asked for twenty-four hours to think it over.
He gave her twelve.
She replied in six.
She was coming home to Boston.
