Coda
by Kyllikki (kyllikki8@hotmail.com)
Spoilers: None -- this is an AU,
quasi-futurefic.
Summary: Eventually they fall apart,
because he is he and she is she and love doesn't work that way, even in the
Midwest.
Written for Jae Gecko's Secrets Challenge -- and 500 on the nose.
***
Near the end -- two months, maybe -- she stops touching him when they stand at the sink washing dishes after dinner. Their easy banter continues unchanged, but her elbows no longer poke him in the ribs when he misses a bit of food and she stops using his shoulder as a towel rack. He doesn't mention it, and life moves on.
One Thursday morning she is unusually solicitous, awakening him with a gentle
kiss and the promise of pancakes and bacon.
When he pads out to the kitchen after his shower, he finds her standing
over the griddle. She has the table set
with his grandmother's china and good silver.
Awed and slightly confused, he eases up behind her, wraps his arms
around her and murmurs I love you in
her ear. Instead of leaning back against
him, she smiles, kisses him softly, and gives him a little shove in the
direction of the table, instructing him to sit down and enjoy his breakfast. He shoots her what must be an utterly
befuddled look, and she sweetly says she just wanted to cook a nice breakfast
and that he needs to eat his pancakes before they get cold, and oh, would he
like some coffee?
Uncertain what to make of this very un-Jordan-like behavior, he accuses her of orchestrating a preemptive apology for the disaster he'll inevitably find when he gets to the precinct this morning. Her denial is unconvincing, and after a while he gives up and they laugh about it like always. He gives in and sits down, consuming a vast quantity of bacon and pancakes while she hovers at the counter with her coffee and the Globe. She reads Maureen Dowd aloud just to see him squirm, and he obliges her glee with his traditional eyerolls. This morning she doesn't look up from the paper to see them. After he's done stuffing himself, he moves to help her with the dishes, but she stops him.
"Woody--"
He catches the flash of something indefinable in her eyes.
"Never mind," she says, shaking her head. "It's not important."
He arrives home from work that evening to find her key laying on the kitchen
counter. He knows it's not a mistake,
that she didn't just accidentally leave it there when she went to work. Just in case, though, he goes into the
bathroom to check. Her toothbrush is
gone, as is the box of tampons she keeps under the sink. As he makes his way back out to the living
room, he looks around and notices how imperceptible her absence is. No gap in his closet, no empty drawer in the
bathroom, no old grocery list scribbled thoughtlessly and still lying around
the apartment, no leftover chocolate fudge brownie ice cream in the
freezer. No visible evidence of the
demise of an eighteen-month relationship.
She was never here, he realizes.
Long after the sun sets he sits on the couch cradling a beer and wondering how to feel.
-end-
Notes: The summary line was the last impression of a vaguely distressing dream -- I woke up with that sentence in my head when my alarm went off one morning, and actually managed to write it down before I forgot it. From thence was this fic born.
Also, let me be clear that I like Woody an awful lot. He and Jordan have wonderful chemistry, and there's a great relationship brewing there. That said, I have the distinct impression -- for a variety of reasons too lengthy to discuss here -- that Woody and Jordan are ultimately doomed. This story is a reflection of that belief.
