She couldn't think…all she could do was feel as his hands roamed over her…gently touching her here, pressing a soft kiss there, before claiming her lips again and kissing her until she absolutely couldn't think at all. She felt the zipper slide down the back of her dress as he eased it from her shoulders, pushing it down to her waist and then the floor before running his fingers through her hair… softly whispering her name before he lifted her in his arms and took her to bed.

Took her to bed and made love to her until he was the only coherent thought she had. He was the only thought she wanted to have.

And then she woke up -- suddenly, almost coming off the thin mattress, her breath catching in her throat, and her body breaking out in a cold sweat.

It was the same dream she had with alarming regularity. When she first moved here, she had it nearly nightly…then weekly. Finally it had lapsed into only a few times a month. But every time it returned, it came back with such a fierce intensity that she had trouble differentiating between reality and her dream world. She could feel his hands…hear his voice. Only to wake up to the bitter knowledge that her dream, like him, had slipped away from her.

Jordan sighed and got out of bed. She would get no more sleep tonight.

Garret sighed and looked over his morgue…it was in shambles. It still was a wreck from the months before. He didn't know when it would be back to normal. To be honest, he really didn't care. He went into this office and slammed the door. There was a stack of messages on his desk. He didn't have to guess who half of them were from. The Massachusetts State Attorney General. What are you going to do about it? What do you think? How should we handle this?

What am I going to do about it? Not a damn thing. This is your mess. You clean it up. What do I think? I think you people screwed up big time and want me to try to straighten it out. How should you handle it? How the hell should I know? I'm still struggling with how to deal with it myself.

Garret pulled a file from the drawer of his desk and looked through it for the millionth time. He should have seen it coming. At least as DAs go, Rene' Walcott was honest, even if she couldn't be faithful. He may have had to put up with her hard-assed ways, but if the truth slapped her in the face, she would recognize it and back down. When she resigned to go to the West Coast to raise her son, the new DA was entirely different from her. A political show pony. He didn't care about the truth…only making a name for himself. And he did it on the backs of others.

At least those in charge had seen the DA for what he was…and when the police picked him up and charged him…a collective sigh of relief could have been heard in the morgue and the Boston PD. But it was too little too late. Far too little, much too late. The damage had been done. The backs that the DA had rode to notoriety, had broken.

Some never to be repaired again, Garret feared.

He looked over at Nigel and Bug. Nigel was still thinner and paler than usual. The dark circles under his eyes denoted the fact that he still wasn't sleeping right. Bug looked equally as wane…and had become even more withdrawn than usual. Lily, well, Lily had never looked so worn out…Even in the worst crisis, Lily had maintained her professionalism and composure – the federal building collapsing, the airplane crash that killed Devan – she had handled them all well. But this time, even Lily came apart.

But the one item that silently spoke volumes was the empty office at the end of the hall. She was gone. Jordan was gone. The back that DA really broke was hers. And in the end, when it was all over, she didn't recover. Not this time. She was tired of fighting. She had left her letter of resignation and cell phone on Garret's desk, cleaned out her office, and disappeared. No one knew where. Not even Woody.

No one but some lawyer in downtown Boston. Jordan had said in her letter that if anyone needed to get a message to her, to do it through her lawyer. And that lawyer wasn't telling anyone anything about Jordan. "She wasn't charged in this event, so there's no need for the Boston PD or anyone else associated with them to know where Dr. Cavanaugh is at. I will tell you that she is safe…and coping." That is all the counselor said, effectively shutting everyone out of Jordan's new life.

Garret glanced through the file one more time before slamming it shut and throwing it back into his file draw in disgust. No matter how many times he would look through it, there was nothing new there…nothing that would shed any light on why it had to happen and where she was.

And he wished he knew where she was….he had called all the morgues she had worked at before…Denver, Atlanta, LA, Chicago….none of them had seen her or heard from her. Nigel had discreetly put a search out for her and came up empty. If all those times she had run taught her nothing else, they taught her how to hide and hide well. It was if she had dropped off the face of the earth.

Sighing again, Garret stood up. It was time to get things back to normal…for his sake and his staff's. He missed her. They all missed her. But they understood why she had to leave … and why this time she would stay gone.

It's a lovely morning, Jordan thought, as she backed her jeep out of her great-aunt's driveway and headed into Dublin. It's a lovely morning, even if I don't feel quite so lovely myself. She never fell back to sleep after she woke from the dream that had disturbed her rest.

She drove into Dublin with the windows down and her favorite CD playing. Her CD collection, her guitar, her clothes, and a few pictures were the only things she had taken with her when she fled Boston that night, months ago. She had taken only what was most important to her. She left instructions that the rest of her belongings be sold and the money put in her account. The Pogue, she had left to be managed by her lawyer's discretion. She got weekly financial reports. If Max didn't come back, she eventually planned to sell it.

Ireland. She had run to Ireland. The land of her roots. She had connected with one of her father's aunts…her great-aunt Caroline. The woman had taken her in and welcomed her as one of her own children. Caroline's daughter, Kathleen, remembered her father, Max. Jordan wasn't quite sure what to make of the family reunion, but she was glad it happened. Kathleen worked at the University of Dublin. She got Jordan a job teaching there. Jordan lived in the upstairs of her Aunt Caroline's tiny cottage. Caroline called it the garrett. Jordan thought it was ironic that the place that was protecting her and keeping her safe now had the same name as the man in America who had worked so hard to protect her, too.

Jordan sighed as she thought of her friends…and Woody. She hadn't tried to contact any of them. She didn't know what was going on in Boston. Evidently nothing that concerned her, because other than the Pogue's financial reports that her lawyer faxed her, she heard nothing. Once she found out there would be no warrant sworn out for her arrest, she hopped a plane and landed in Ireland. The land where her father's family came from…the land that had brought her peace of mind. Her great-aunt's cottage was out in the country…about a 45 minute drive from Dublin. She had found serenity and serendipity out there in the green, rolling fields….watching the sheep and the cows. Walking into the tiny village on Saturdays to retrieve a few groceries and things for Caroline. Getting to know her neighbors on a first-name basis and not worrying if she didn't lock her door at night. No one broke into anything there. As a matter of fact, the worst crime anyone could remember was about five years ago when a group of boys egged Mr. Barley's store. It was the talk of the town for a month or more. The boys confessed and were sentence to working five Saturdays for Mr. Barley without pay – after they cleaned the egg off the store front.

If only Boston could have been that simple.

But it wasn't. She had unintentionally left behind a mess that she didn't cause…but she had endured as much as she could. The exhumation of her mother's body was the last straw. After confronting Woody to see if she was going to be charged, and finding the answer was no, she left….she put her cell phone and resignation on Garret's desk and got out of Boston as quickly as possible. She didn't even say goodbye to Nigel…a fact that still bothered her conscious, but she knew it was for the best. The less those folks had to deal with her under those circumstances, the better.

She had heard the DA was arrested and charged. That was wonderful. She had been truly happy to hear that. Kathleen had asked her if she was planning to go home now. Jordan just looked at Kathleen as if she had lost her mind and replied, "I am home," for in this case, home wasn't right behind her…it was right in front of her.