Disclaimer: I do not own Crossing Jordan.

The same goes for the song Angel of the Morning. The version I had in mind is by The Pretenders.

Note: Thanks very much to Mexwojo, Casey (BugFan4Ever),

rosemarie314, eternalgorithm and cjloverforever for their reviews!

Once again, feel free to leave a review. I appreciate them very much, and I'm only reasonably vain. :))

P.S. I know, I know, this isn't longish, this is long. :)

"You gotta be kidding me." Jordan was incredulous. In fact, she almost choked on the poor excuse for coffee they served at the inn's diner.

However, Woody just shook his head. He just finished retelling the conversation he had had with Cal five minutes ago. His brother had informed him on the new plans for the evening made by Liz's bridesmaids.

"And people say I'm weird." She sighed. "Who would like to play a murder mystery after the rehearsal dinner?"

"Hey, it wasn't my idea." was all he came up with.

"I have a pretty good idea whose idea it was." She was annoyed. "She is weird, you know? I can't believe you actually asked her to go to prom with you."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Jordan." He started being defensive. "You're weird." Even before she managed to shoot him a venomous look, he rapidly added, "Some people say. In a good way, though." He tried his luck with the dimples, full aware that the chances of that working in that situation were something like one to five zillions. It didn't work, of course, so he quickly resumed, "It's all part of your charm. And it was part of her charm back then. Not to mention that she was a cheerleader and everything…"

"You see, now I'm disappointed, Farm Boy. Didn't think you were so shallow. Easily impressed with popularity, wanting to be a cheerleader's boyfriend…" Jordan was eager to find out more. They had never really talked much about their school days.

"Well, even if I had been, which I hadn't, I've definitely changed for the better," he retorted.

"Yeah?" She raised her eyebrows. "How do you figure?"

The dimples showed up again. "You're certainly not the Homecoming Queen type, Jordan."

Jordan being Jordan, she had a quick-witted remark ready, but the waitress appeared with her tray. As she put the plates in front of them and turned to leave, a grin crossed Woody's face.

"Now, my friend, this is what I call breakfast. Not leftovers of Chinese, not coffee room donuts. This is the real thing." He was looking enthusiastically at the big fluffy cheese omelette on his plate. "Too bad you didn't take my advice," he said, looking at Jordan, who was playing with her more than slightly burnt toast.

"Now, my friend, hate to tell you what that real thing of yours will do to your arteries." She bravely helped herself to a piece of her toast.

Then she looked across the table at Woody, who apparently wasn't in the least bit concerned about his blood vessels, as he was about to stick his fork in the omelette.

"You know, last week I had that guy who-" she started, but was cut off.

"Stop it right now, Jordan," he said. "For it's not gonna work."

"What's not gonna work?" she asked innocently.

"You're not gonna gross me," he answered matter-of-factly.

"And who said I'd like to do such a thing?" Her brown eyes opened wide in amazement. "Anyway," she continued, "it's tricky in the beginning, the first couple of times. Heart dissection, I mean."

"Does it even look like I'm listening to you?" He still seemed unmoved.

"You first have to open pericardium. But that's not much fun," she hurried, seeing that he was underlining his words by starting to slice the omelette. "Then you cut the pulmonary arteries and veins at the hilum of the lungs, careful not to cut the vagus nerve. Of course, there's no much blood." She was amused to see him hesitate a little before he lifted his fork. "But, oh man, what that LDL does to one's arteries! All those lesions of atherosclerosis… Don't know how to describe them, to me they look most like some kind of brownish slime."

It happened: he put his fork down and pushed the plate towards her. She tried not to smile, but it was difficult. For God's sake, the man was a cop! And after all gruesome things he'd seen over the years, he'd still turn greenish in Autopsy. Not to mention the fact he obviously wasn't able to stand a bit of gross talk over breakfast.

"You know, you could have simply ordered one," he said, his arms folded tightly across his chest. He was sulking.

"Yeah, I know. But this was so much fun," she admitted before adding apologetically, her lips curving into a small smile. "Wanna share?"

He was weighing his options for a second, and then she was rewarded with one of those patented farm-boy smiles, dimples and all.

"Morning, luv." Nigel was in an extremely good mood. Life was wonderful! He slept well, that new take away place was great, he even managed to catch a rerun of "The X Files." Hell, he arrived to work on time. And to top it all, Kane's tox results were there and they were more than interesting.

"Don't you 'luv' me," Bug grumbled. He wasn't over the moon that day. His back hurt like hell. It seemed that sleeping on the couch hadn't been a great idea after all. And then, of course, there was the issue of the unresolved sexual tension between Lily and him lingering in the air.

"Sorry, Buggles." Nigel chuckled. "A slip of the tongue, that's all. Anyways, while you were sleeping, I got this," he said, handing his friend a sheet of paper which contained the toxicological analysis of Dave Kane's blood.

"What? Taxin?" Dr. Vijay was surprised, to say the least. Taxin poisoning didn't occur often. When it did, it would usually be small children who had eaten yew berries out of curiosity. "There were no berries in his stomach contents."

"Nope," confirmed Nige. "But analyses showed the presence of taxin. Since we had bread and something that resembles jam, too, I'd said somebody had probably put it in his marmalade. The poor bastard didn't know what hit him."

Bug sighed; he wouldn't even dream of telling his friend to show some more respect towards the deceased. For the Brit the word "bastard" wasn't offensive at all. So he only asked, "Does Elliot know?"

"Yeah, I called him fifteen minutes ago," Nigel replied. "I persuaded him to drop by later and tell us how the investigation is going."

Jordan couldn't see the point in rehearsing your own wedding. Shouldn't that be something… she lacked the right word… well, not spontaneous exactly, but not something rehearsed, either.

'Why the hell would you like to practice getting married?' she had asked herself the question more than a couple of times. She eventually had to shake the thought off, focusing on Lizzie and Cal. They made a beautiful couple indeed. It was not that much that they both were young and pretty, it was more the stars in their eyes whenever they'd see each other. They simply glowed with happiness.

"I still can't grasp why." She heard Woody, who was sitting beside her, whisper.

"Why what?" she was confused.

"I know he's a great guy. That he's always been a great guy deep down inside. Well, very deep inside. But when they started dating… I mean, that was like immediately after that Albanian mob thing. He was still a handful of trouble," he said. "And that's an understatement."

"As you said, he is a great guy and she was able to see that despite everything. She helped him grow up," Jordan explained him his point of view. "And I think things will get even better when they move to LA. Nobody there knows about his past. He'll be able to start over and I think he's ready for that."

"I only hope he'll find a job there." Woody was a bit concerned.

"Oh, he will," she assured him. "There's always something to do in LA."

"Guess you're right," he agreed. "About everything, I mean."

After a second or so, he added somewhat philosophically, "The heart has its own reasons, which reason doesn't know."

Jordan was bewildered. "Did you just…?"

"What? Can't I quote anybody?" He was defensive, then annoyed, "A dumb country cop-"

"No, no, no…" She was a bit embarrassed, feeling that she maybe did overreact. "I just… Well, I just thought old robots and old cars were your cup of tea. Not Blaise Pascal…" When he was still unresponsive, she made an attempt to smooth things out. "Oui, oui,… Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point." She repeated Pascal's thought about the nature of faith which had been kind of misused over the centuries, but in French.

He had always laughed at his friends who claimed there was nothing sexier than a girl, especially a hot one, speaking French. Now he knew what they had been talking about. To get those thoughts out of his head, he said, "Didn't know you spoke French."

"There's a lot you don't know about me, Farm Boy," she retorted with a smile. "But I don't really speak French. This is one of about twenty sentences I still remember from school. I speak Spanish and Italian, though."

"Yeah, I know you speak Spanish." He recalled a fight she once had with detective Cruz, when they both started yelling insults in the detective's mother tongue. Then the green-eyed monster attacked him viciously and he couldn't stop himself from saying, "I guess your Latino boyfriends from LA taught you."

The words had been out of his mouth before he even knew it. Damn, he didn't want to sound bitter or jealous.

"Yeah, but just a little." She smiled. "LA is full of Hispano Americans, ya know? But I did learn Italian from Paolo." She couldn't resist it.

Damn, he was jealous now, he was sorry he'd brought the matter up. He was sorry he'd addressed her. But her smile was so irresistible. One would think he'd built up some kind of tolerance to it over the years, but that was just impossible to do.

"Well, I do know some German." he said hopefully.

Detective Elliot Chandler was frustrated. That taxin or whatever it was called could have been put into Kane's jar of marmalade anywhere between two months ago, when he'd bought it and Wednesday evening. The jar was full of fingerprints that belonged to Kane and his girlfriend. After all, they had lived together.

What the detective needed was a motive. And he thought he'd found one. But how the hell was he supposed to prove anything? Those were his thoughts as he was stepping out of the elevator in the morgue.

"You gotta help me, guys," he said pleadingly as he entered Trace.

Bug and Nigel looked at him, feeling sorry for him for what they had to say.

"Sorry, mate," said Nigel. "We've got nothing. We've gone through everything once more, but still…"

Chandler sighed exasperatedly. "I knew it." After a couple of moments, he spoke again. "I really have a feeling about this guy, Kane's ex-best friend."

"Ex?" Bug was curious, which wasn't very characteristic of him.

"Yes, well, they're both theater directors. I mean, Kane was one. They fell out a couple of months ago when Boston Theater chose Kane to direct 'The Mousetrap.' It seems that Greene suspected foul play," the detective explained.

"That could be a motive," the entomologist agreed.

They both turned to Nigel, whose jaw suddenly dropped.

"Sweet Nancy!" he exclaimed, and ran to his computer.

Both Bug's and Chandler's curiosity was stirred, and they hurried after the criminologist.

"Agatha Christie." As always, Nigel was eager to explain his conclusions. "I knew it was too familiar. You see, in one of her books, a guy is killed with taxin in his marmalade. Yes… that's it, I knew it. 'A Pocket Full Of Rye.'"

"Well, someone who wanted badly to direct 'The Mousetrap' would

certainly know that." Elliot was excited about this new moment, but he knew it wasn't really much.

"And it could serve as some kind of weird poetic justice." Bug nodded.

"I think I'll go and talk to Mr. Greene one more time," the detective concluded.

Jordan was trying hard to suppress a yawn. They were playing a murder mystery, courtesy of Mary Alice and Jessica, Liz's other bridesmaid. Everybody but Cal, Woody and herself seemed to have a lot of fun. Elizabeth was at least trying to enjoy the lame game. As she sipped her energy drink, Jordan caught Woody's worried look. She smiled at him reassuringly. He could be such a sweetheart sometimes, but she didn't need anyone babying her. After all, that was her first energy drink that night. Coffee didn't count; she was almost resistant to coffee. And she really needed something to boost her energy or she wouldn't be able to pull through such a boring evening. She'd gladly drink a beer or two, though. The only problem was that this was a non-alcohol party.

She glanced at her watch. It was almost ten. 'Good,' she thought. "Just an hour more or even less and I'll be in the shower, getting ready for a long, long sleep. If I'm able to fall asleep after this stuff, that is."

Woody sat beside her. "Hey, you're not even trying," he whispered into her ear, causing shivers down her spine and, consequently, a muttered 'damn' from her lips.

She snorted. "Like you do."

"Well, I have to admit this doesn't come even close to the Cavanaugh family murder mysteries," he said in reply.

"You're damn right about that," she said, and her eyes darkened for a moment as she remembered her dad. 'At least I've talked to him recently,' she thought, and then shrugged the thought off. She didn't need to go there right now.

"The only reason we're stuck here," she continued, "is the fact that she hopes to get cast as an ME in that movie she was babbling about yesterday. So I'm like some lab animal here."

She was really gorgeous when she got angry. He couldn't help the thought. "Yeah, I've figured that out." He nodded. "But, on the bright side, your role is practically over. And, thank God, Ray and not yours truly is the detective."

She noticed a piece of paper in his hand. "So, what you've got?" She managed to smile.

"Wanna compare notes?" he asked. "'Kay, I say it's the hospital janitor, but the nephew had ordered it. And I bet on the deadly injection of air into her blood stream."

"Oh, you're good," she said, handing him her piece of paper. "It's the radial artery, to be precise, but never mind. I hoped you'd get MO wrong since this sloppy ME hadn't reached a conclusion -"

Suddenly, she felt strange, lightheaded. In an instant, the room started spinning around. It stopped almost immediately, but it was enough to scare her.

"Jordan?" He frowned, worried. "You okay?"

Not looking at him, she nodded. She knew it was totally unconvincing. He didn't buy it. He lifted her chin, but her eyes were still downcast. "Tell me the truth, Jordan. Please," he encouraged her in a soft voice.

Her eyelashes fluttered in an attempt to get rid of the tears that threatened to shed.

"It's nothing, really." She tried to smile. "I-I just felt dizzy for a moment."

He hugged her. It took him a lot of strength to employ his best carefree voice. "You didn't really eat and sleep much these days," he said. "It's just fatigue."

But they both knew that the other one was thinking the same: meningioma. And they both silently prayed they were wrong.

"C'mon, I'm getting you out of here," he told her decisively.

"We can do this the easy way or the hard way." detective Chandler was tired, but he was by no means giving up. "It's up to you, Mr. Greene."

He wanted to punch that arrogant son of a bitch right in that pale face of his. However, he reminded himself that that smugness of his was something the police could benefit from. For, being so conceited, Greene didn't want a lawyer. He boasted a couple of trimesters at a law school.

Just as Elliot was contemplating his next words, detective Santana entered the room. As she whispered something to Elliot, Chandler's face grew grimmer and grimmer.

"You just sit there," he addressed Greene, "and think wisely how you're gonna use that call. Personally, I'd suggest you call a good lawyer."

"Hey, guys, what's up? Still at work, huh?" Elliot Chandler entered Trace for the third time that day.

"We were just leaving," Bug replied.

"Any luck with our friend, Mr. Greene?" Nigel asked eagerly.

"Well, I wouldn't exactly call him a friend," the detective retorted. "Anyway, I came round to tell you I was lucky after all. The girl, Maria Jones, was cheating on Kane with Greene. Our guy enticed her to do it – kill Kane, that is – and he planned that entire charade with the shooting so that she be off the list of possible suspects."

"But why did he confess?" Bug was incredulous. "He could have gotten away with it."

Chandler nodded reluctantly. "It wasn't him. It was the girl. Apparently, Greene was planning to go to Europe on business. For a long, long time. And he had no intention of bringing our beautiful Maria with him. She accidentally found out about it and came to us. When Santana was questioning her, she was no more than a bundle of nerves. She'll probably go to a sanatorium or something," he explained.

"But what's with Greene?" inquired Nigel. "There is no proof against him except her statement and if she's insane-"

"There are his love letters to her," Chandler answered his question. "She was clever or foolish enough to save them."

He turned to leave. "Good night, guys."

"Wait," Nigel said, sounding quite festive. "This needs celebrating. Anybody for eat-all-you-can at 'Beef & Brew'?"

"Sounds like a good idea!" The detective surprised even himself with that answer.

"I really need to go home, Nige. Some other time," the entomologist replied, pretending not to see his friend pulling a long face.

When Bug got home, which was pretty late, Lily was still up. She was waiting for him.

"Hey," he said, placing a light kiss on her cheek. "Thought you'd already be asleep."

She slowly shook her head. "I hope you're not too tired 'cause I really need to talk to you."

He was about to give in to temptation and tell her he was tired like a dog and go to sleep, but his reason told him there's no point in trying to avoid what was inevitable. Therefore, he just nodded and sat by her side.

"You see, Bug," she started in a sad voice, "I don't think this is working. I think we both need to decide…"

He didn't hear anything that followed, for there was a little voice in his head (which bore a funny resemblance to that one from the famous cartoon, he mused afterwards) which was practically screaming, "Kiss the girl!" So Bug obeyed. He pulled Lily, who was in the middle of her carefully prepared speech, into a long-awaited kiss that put an end to all their fears and doubts.

"Now, that one isn't funny even to me any more." Woody looked at Jordan suspiciously.

Something weird was happening. As they walked from Jessica's house to the inn (which was about a quarter of mile away), she laughed almost hysterically at his jokes she usually despised as corny.

"What's going on, Jordan?" He was puzzled.

"Oh, nothing!" she replied as they were climbing the stairs to their room. "I just feel good, so full of energy!"

"Oh yeah?" he teased. "Any chance you OD'd on that energy drink of yours?" he asked as he closed the door.

What followed definitely added to his bewilderment. Was the Moon in Uranus or something? For Jordan turned round to face him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and - oh God – she didn't just brush his lips against his, but she actually kissed him. Which was kind of strange after her pulling away (which he was trying to sweep under the carpet, by the way) the previous day. He said the words before realizing what he was uttering:

"Jordan, stop. Please." He started removing her arms from around his neck.

'What's wrong with me?' the voice in his brain yelled. 'The woman I love is french kissing me and I tell her to stop!?'

But he knew the answer. It had never been easy with Jordan. God knew why she was doing that. She may regret it the next day, especially keeping in mind how weird she'd been acting for the last fifteen minutes. He wanted her to be able to look herself in the mirror the following morning. And he wanted the same for himself. He was just trying to be reasonable.

As for Jordan, she did feel a bit weird, but she knew exactly what she was doing.

'Meningioma or not meningioma, too much time has been wasted. And I'm not waiting a minute longer.' Her train of thought was discontinued for a couple of moments. 'If he didn't feel anything, he wouldn't have come that morning with all that talk about the Smith-Raleigh case. He only wanted to be sure I was coming… and, um… he wouldn't have tried to kiss me yesterday….'

She heard him talk, and felt her arms being removed from his neck. But she was determinate. If he loved her, well, there would be plenty of time to talk the following morning. If he didn't, well, she still wanted him and she wouldn't be ashamed or feeling fooled for making love to him. She wasn't thinking that rationally exactly. Her mind was currently a whirlpool. Beside myriad other things, the lyrics of an old song were running through her brain: "There'll be no strings to bind your hands, / not if my love can't bind your heart. / And there's no need to take a stand / For it was I who chose to start. / I see no reason to take me home, / I'm old enough to face the dawn…"

"Don't you want me?" She hugged him again before he was able to walk away. She asked the question knowing full well he did.

"Jordan, I – I… we shouldn't." was all he managed to say as he felt her nearness overwhelming him. His voice was gruff.

"That's not what I asked," she said in a silky, seductive tone.

In the dim light which was coming from the outside, he was able to see her, and he felt as if he was having a deja-vu. She was just giving him

her you-want-me-to-play-the-boy look, which – needless to say – had the exactly same effect as the last time she used it.

His arms clasped around her as his lips found hers, soft and tasty. As his lips then wandered along her jaw line, she started unbuttoning his shirt. His lips relishing the satin-like skin of her neck, their breathing was becoming shallower and shallower. When his kisses found the soft spot on her throat, she moaned slightly, and he cursed himself for what he was about to do.

For, he had finally realized what was wrong. She was hotter than hell. And not only metaphorically (which she definitely was). He voiced his thoughts. "You're hotter than hell." Then he started pulling away slowly.

"Mhmmm, thank you." She chuckled, reaching for his belt buckle.

"No, Jordan, I mean yes, but…" He took her hands into his. "I mean, you're burning."

"Geez." She rolled her eyes at him. "Aren't you overrating yourself a bit, Farm Boy?" she said jokingly.

Then it hit her; the seriousness of his voice reached her. He turned on the light.

"We have to take your temperature," he said.

She looked at him and sighed. All the desire was gone from his eyes, and they were now filled with concern.

"Wait a minute." She waved her hand. "We already know my temperature's high, so we might as well list other symptoms before measuring it. I mean, it's not like we have a thermometer here anyway."

It was one of the rare moments of his life when he wasn't able to say, "I've got it all covered." It seemed he wasn't a perfect boy scout after all. He sighed, and started listing the symptoms or, more precisely, that what looked like symptoms to him. "Dizziness, hysteria (pardon me), fever." It was the best he could do.

"Discontinued trail of thought," she continued, and then stopped, musing over everything she'd done that day. She found it really hard to focus. It took her a couple of minutes, but she finally realized. "I'll be damned." She started chuckling.

He just looked at her, puzzled.

"Ever thought of becoming an MD?" she asked him. He was still clueless, so she resumed, "You were right. I did OD. On caffeine."

"You can actually do that?" Woody's confusion was deepening by the second.

"Oh, yes, you can." She laughed, not fully grasping why. "I'll explain it to you in the morning. I'm not really sure I can do it right now."

"But what should I do?" He was starting to panic. "What medications do you need? I'm calling 911," he declared.

"Don't be silly," she reassured him. "It's not that bad or I wouldn't be talking to you, much less I'd be able to make a diagnosis. Just open the window and I'll sit by it. Meanwhile, you go to the pharmacy and get some activated charcoal."

"Activated charcoal," he murmured. "Ok. But are you sure you can stay here on your own?"

"Sure." She smiled at him. "Just hurry up."

"I'll be back in a few," he said, opening the window. Then he gave her a worried look and hurried out of the room.

Jordan threw herself onto her bed, not sure whether she felt more like laughing or crying. Her own stupidity and recklessness had just robbed her of the steamiest night since… hell, since Littleton Village.

Those were her last thoughts before she broke into a series of uncontrollable hysterical chuckles.