Disclaimer: Despite repeated offers from me, Tim Kring won't sell his characters or allow me to write for the TV show. So I don't own anything to do with Crossing Jordan. This is all for fun and not for profit, believe me.

Darn.

Chapter One

It Doesn't Get Any Easier

Some days it seemed that work never got any easier. There were always murderers and burglars, rapists and con men…no matter how hard he worked…no matter how many of the perps he got off the street, it seemed that there were four more to take their place. Woody ran a hand through his hair, setting it on end, and leaned back in his chair to catch his breath.

It never ended. There wasn't a light at the end of his tunnel…or a dawn just about to break.

It was dark…and it had been to him for a while now….

Despite the good things that had happened to him recently…a new girl he had just begun to see…a promotion at work…a new apartment, part of his world seemed dark…a dim reflection of what it had been two years ago. He had tried to pull out of this deep funk…and at times had seemed successful…but it was all a ruse. A cover up. A sham. He hadn't been the same since six months after he was shot by the sniper.

And it wasn't the sniper shooting and battle to get his legs back that had put him in this state of mind.

It was her.

Six months after the sniper shooting, she was gone. Out of his life, out of reality…Jordan simply wasn't there any longer. He couldn't talk to her…or argue with her…

Or apologize for the hurtful words he had said to her in the hospital room that day…Screw your pity, Jordan. Just get out. Now. He could never take the words back, but now he couldn't even let her know how sorry he was that he said them.

So he moved on…he had tried for a while to make contact with her, but nothing had worked. She didn't respond. Reluctantly, after a while, he had given up. He still asked about her, to her friends at the morgue, but their response was always the same… "She's doing as well as can be expected…"

Woody sighed and pushed aside the pile of paperwork that needed his attention. It had been two years. There had been no change. It was truly time for him to go on with his life. Garret even told him so. Maybe Jenna would begin to date him seriously. Maybe he could learn to let go of a past that had a huge Jordan-sized hole in it.

One that would probably never be filled by her again. There was no getting her back now….he suspected she was too far gone.

Picking up the report he was supposed to be reading, he scanned the information, making a mental note to talk to the answering officer before the day was out…then pushing that one aside, he continued to work through the stack of reports until he reached the bottom of the pile. When he had reached it, read it, and signed off on it, he grabbed his coat and reached over to turn off the light on his desk, but her picture caught his eye. He put it there to remind him of what could have been. It was one that Lily had made of them at the Christmas party…right before he was shot. She was beautiful in red…and was smiling that enigmatic smile that always threw him off balance because he never knew what she was thinking.

He always had believed, if things would have worked out, they could have been happy together at some point. At some distinct time, the stars would have aligned, both of their defenses would have been down, and they both would have admitted they needed each other more than their next breath.

Now he realized, after two years, it was never meant to be. He lightly touched the picture with his finger before snapping off the light. It would never happen…not now. It was like Garret had said, the best thing for him to do was go on with his life. He was young. He had years ahead of him and she would want him to be happy.

He was putting on his coat when the ringing of his cell phone broke the silence of his office and pushed him out of his reverie. "Hoyt," he said into receiver.

"Woody…this is Garret."

"Garret. How's it going? I was just getting ready to leave, but if it's about the Johnson case I can come over to the morgue before I go home…."

"No…It's not about the Johnson case. It's about Jordan."

Woody sat down heavily in his chair. He feared it couldn't be good news. "Jordan?" he repeated. His mouth was dry and he was suddenly having a hard time breathing. "What…?"

"The doctor just called. She's beginning to wake up."


"Come on Dr. Cavanaugh….open your eyes," Dr. Cruz said, prying open Jordan's eyelids and looking at the pupils with a pen light. "Come on…you're just about there….wakey, wakey…"

"Hmphf," Jordan mumbled, as her eyes struggled to open and focus despite the bright light flashing in them.

"Come on….that's better…."

Jordan pushed away the hand that was holding the offending light. "Stop," she said, "Where the hell am I? What happened?"

"Easy….easy….," Dr. Cruz said, snapping off the light, sitting back, and looking at her carefully. "I don't want my favorite patient to get so worked up." He gave her a smile…one tinged with relief and wonder. "How do you feel?"

"I have a headache and I'm tired. What happened?"

Dr. Cruz's smile grew wider. "You sustained a little head injury on that last case you were working on…you've been out of it for a little while."

"Well, that explains the headache."

"Probably." Dr. Cruz hesitated, waiting for the inevitable question.

"So…how long have I been out, Doctor?"

There it was. "A while," he hedged. "Let me finish examining you and then Dr. Macy hopes you feel up to seeing him."


The phone slipped from Woody's nerveless fingers. She was waking up…coming around. After two years in a coma, Jordan was regaining consciousness.

"Woody? Woody, are you there?" He heard the ME's voice coming from his phone that had fallen on the floor. He bent and grabbed the phone with slippery, sweaty fingers.

"I'm here…"

"I'm on my way to Boston General…Want to meet me there?"

"Yeah… What does the doctor say?"

"Not a whole lot right now…she's just begun to wake up…her brain scans have been normal for months….there wasn't any atrophy there. So maybe…"

"She'll be okay…normal."

"We can only hope…"

Woody made it to the hospital in record time, forgetting the elevator and taking the stairs two at a time to the eighth floor. Throwing open the door to the stairwell and rounding the corner, he caught sight of Garret in the hall.

"What's the word? How is she?" Woody asked, still trying to regain his breath.

"She's awake…and talking…" Garret said, giving Woody a tight smile… the kind of smile that let him know that while the initial news was good….there was more to it than that.

"But…" Woody said. "It's not all good news, is it, Garret."

"No…I'm afraid not."

"Then what?"

"She's lost track of time…she thinks it's the day after the accident."