Hello! Yay, I started a new story! It's a sequel to "A Picture's Worth," but it's not necessary to read it before this one. Hope you enjoy it...please review!

Disclaimer: Why would anyone who actually owns Crossing Jordan be writing fanfiction stories? Okay, maybe because it's only in reruns now, but still...so no, I don't own CJ.:-)

Summary: Jordan and Woody quickly realize that being a couple doesn't make life perfect. Now they have to decide of what they have is close enough.

Chapter One: Finally?

Jordan and Woody soon learned that "finally" was not the same as "happily ever after." As it is with most things, the first few weeks were amazing…the next few were great…and it kept sliding downwards from there.

Sighing, Jordan unlocked her big red door and pushed through it wearily. Bypassing the kitchen and dinner, she headed directly to the bathroom shedding clothes as she went. A long, hot bath might clear her mind.

As the water rushed into the tub and Jordan added her favorite bath oils, she wondered what had happened to her and Woody. Sure, they had fought before when they were 'just friends,' but never as constantly as now. It seemed like there was always something getting on one of their nerves…not big things, but the little ones were adding up.

She sank into the steamy water and worried—not for the first time—that they were crushing under the pressure of being a couple. Maybe what she had feared all along was coming true—the change in their relationship would cause them to lose one another. Friends could make up…couples imploded.

This time it was about a case—one that made Jordan's skin crawl without the disagreements she had with Woody. A twelve-year-old boy had been found, shot execution style. There was also considerable evidence of physical abuse. When they identified him as Jake Williams, they found out that he lived in a group home.

The interview with the social worker who ran the home had not been pretty. Jordan, as usual, refused to wait in the car and disregarded Woody's request that she remember that she was a coroner and not a cop. She nearly accused the director of abusing the boys himself.

"Now just a minute," he said. "No one in this house is abusing anyone."

Jordan had raised her eyebrows incredulously. "He was covered with bruises, some of them a week old."

The man shook his head. "I don't know how that happened…though I wouldn't know anyway. Jake hasn't been here for the last month."

Woody used Jordan's surprise to get back the upper hand. "Was he placed somewhere else?"

Another negative headshake. "He just never came home from school one day. We called the police—we did everything we were supposed to," he added hurriedly, noticing Jordan's eyes flare. "They concluded that he had run away. It's not uncommon, you know."

"No, we don't," Woody replied. "How many of your kids have run away?"

"This year? Nearly thirty," the man explained. "The police found five of them and brought them back. They go back to their parents, if they have any, or they just leave. They think they can make it on their own."

"Well, Jake didn't," Jordan commented. She looked around the room they were sitting in. "If you've lost twenty-five kids, then this house must be nearly empty. It's not that big," she remarked.

He shrugged. "We're overcrowded as it is. Just because some of the kids disappear doesn't mean there aren't any to take their places. There are more kids in bad homes than the city can take care of, Dr. Cavanaugh."

"And you don't find it odd that so many 'disappear?'" she asked hotly.

"Sure I do, but there's not much I can do about it," the director answered.

Jordan stood up. "Why don't you look after them? Maybe they wouldn't run away if you were better at your job!"

Woody ended the interview after that, and they both left angry. They argued all the way back to the morgue about everything from Jordan's attitude to the foster care system. Woody was with the law—and common courtesy, as he put it. Jordan was with the victim, and screw the rest.

When he dropped Jordan off, Woody told her he was just going to go home, even though they had planned to have dinner together at a nice restaurant. He left her standing in the parking lot, somewhere between rage, confusion, and hurt.

Jordan groaned in frustration and pulled herself completely under the water, hoping that it would erase all of her emotions. She realized that she had come on a little strong to the social worker, but she also thought that her anger was valid. Woody was being too passive, and it irritated her.

But it irritated her more that they couldn't keep their work lives out of their personal lives. Dinner would have been a disaster…Jordan knew that. But that didn't keep her from missing Woody's presence.