Disclaimer: Don't own 'em... though I'm in for Nyn's coup.
This is my first venture into 1st person land... I suppose we'll see how it went. Feedback is greatly appreciated.
Enjoy.
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A slight smile of victory broke across my lips as I hefted myself up from my stomach and to my feet.
"Jordan: 1, Dust Bunnies: 0," I muttered to myself as I walked from the couch back to the vacuum. I placed the telescopic hose back in its home before shutting it off.
The loft fell into a hushed near-silence, save the low hum of the television on in the background. I couldn't make out the exact words of the voices, but knew without a doubt that they were selling some sort of new invention that "you won't believe you were ever able to live without."
I had taken to leaving the TV on many nights ago- and had learned to tune it out shortly afterwards. It's only purpose now was to provide some sort of company to ease the loneliness of the long night hours.
My insomnia settled in soon after I went on the run, and it had served me well for those three months; providing me with more hours in the day to track down leads, do research online, or drive to yet another non-descript, back-roads location.
But I had been home for over two months now and still couldn't shake the insomnia's hold on my nights.
In my first few nights back I had lay in bed, eyes closed, waiting for the Sandman to pay me a much needed visit. However, visions of Pollack, Judge Gordon, and the pending trial kept him at bay hour after endless hour, until I began to eagerly await the morning sun's rays filtering through my window and inching their way across my bedroom floor.
I had never been one to lay in wait for anything, so after a few frustrating nights I finally wrote off the whole sleeping bit and used the late night hours to do something I rarely got the time to do: clean.
I remember Nigel once saying something about his insomnia and the History Channel being a "lethal combination." Only now did I fully understand.
Insomnia may be a frustrating condition, but my apartment had never looked better.
In the last several weeks I had cleaned my fridge, my oven, raided my closets and sorted out boxes of clothes to give to Good Will, wiped down walls, scrubbed floors, dusted every nook and cranny… and I was rapidly running out of tasks to do.
I surveyed the now gleaming loft for anything I had yet to see, my eyes passing through my kitchen, past my big red door and finally falling on my desk. Eureka!
The top of the desk had already been tackled in one of my previous night's rampages, but no doubt the drawers of the desk could stand to be sorted through.
"Ah ha! One clean desk, coming up."
I grabbed a waste-basket, sank down in a chair and opened the long top drawer. Receipts went in the trash, newspaper clippings were filed away into a folder that held many more of their kind – small mementos, proof if you will, that my long hours at the morgue were worth all the effort.
Then my hand fell upon a sheath of white paper folded neatly into thirds that I had completely forgotten had found its way into the paper graveyard of my desk.
I recognized it immediately, with its Boston PD letterhead and scrawling signature at the bottom. It was the character reference Woody had written on my behalf when I had planned on fostering Kayla, the one he insisted I take even after it was clear there was no longer any real need for it.
He had stood not too far from here months ago, quietly telling me, "You should read it anyway," and had waited while I read the two short paragraphs at the top of the page.
To: Department of Child and Family Services
I am writing this character reference for Jordan Cavanaugh who is looking to become a foster mother for one Kayla Dawson.
I have known Jordan going on five years and over that time have come to know her quite well. She is a tireless crusader for all that is right and good in this world. She is dedicated and hardworking in her professional life, but when it comes to those she cares about she is truly devoted. For her family and friends Jordan will move heaven and earth.
It is both an honor and a privilege that I call Jordan a friend – or more correctly – as close to family as I have any longer.
That was as far as I'd read that night. I recalled smiling despite my mood. "Thanks. I needed that," I told him and then I invited him to dinner.
I remember him saying he had plans, but could cancel. No, no, I'd insisted, I kissed him on the cheek and sent him on his merry way… to Lu.
Only I hadn't had that last piece of information at the time.
I winced at the memory of walking in on the pair in Woody's new office. I told him it was fine, that I was fine. And I was… to an extent.
It just seems like whenever I stand a chance of getting someone to share my life with that fate somehow rips that chance right out of my grip. And frankly, I'm getting sick of playing fate's nasty game of keep-away.
There was a time when I had deep down believed that Woody and I would get a happy ending – that somehow the stars would align and everything would become easier, that we would both finally be in the right place at the right time.
But that time seemed ages away now. There was too much water under the proverbial bridge. I'd been home for months now, and while Woody was instrumental in proving my innocence, we'd shared little more than a friendly hug and a "Good to have you back" exchange since my return.
No, I was too old for fairy tales. Now, instead, it seemed that Woody and I were destined to become one of those star-crossed couples, sharing only a few fleeting moments of happiness, hints of what might have been. Our souls would have to wait for another time and place to find that happy ending.
I sighed a forlorn sound of missed chances and what-might-have-beens. My eyes moved down the page to the following paragraphs that I had never gotten to that night, the ones I had still yet to read. I had simply assumed they were filled with small references to how Woody and I had come to know each other, to my relationship with my morgue family. But when I began to read the actual words that Woody had composed I discovered I couldn't have been more wrong.