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Eden
Chapter 4
The waiting room was crowded with people two hours later. Lily had brought Bug after leaving their daughter with a sitter, Nigel had rushed from work, and Roz and Santata had just arrived and were trying to comprehend what had happened when Woody wouldn't speak to anyone.
Santana took an empty seat next to her friend and swallowed, looking toward Roz as she came to stand nearby. "I'm so sorry, Woody," she whispered, reaching out to take his limp hand in hers. "I'm sure Jordan's gonna be fine. She's the strongest lady I know."
"Have you found anything?"
It was the first thing he'd said since she had been taken into surgery, and Garret immediately walked over, concerned when he heard the question. Roz cleared her throat. "Um, not yet. Or at least not enough. We've tracked down the woman who gave Mark the letter he gave to you, but she's not directly involved. That's all we've found."
"There was nothing in your home," Santana added. "And only your prints, Mark's, and the woman's were on the paper."
"Jo…Jo didn't work yesterday. Her routine wasn't the same," Woody said hoarsely.
Framus nodded. "Yeah, Garret called us. That was important information, thank you for letting us know." The two detectives glanced at each other, realizing he wasn't really taking any of this in – or even really paying attention to them. Roz sat down in a vacant chair on the other side of Luisa. They had come to share what little information they had, but now that they knew what was going on here neither of them wanted to leave.
Lily came to join the small group clustered around him, wringing her hands. "They've been back there for a while. Haven't they?"
"I'm sure everything is fine," Garret said quietly, touching her hands and guiding her to the seat beside Roz. "They would have told us if anything had gone wrong. Look, there are a lot of us here; why don't some of you go on home?" The rest of the people looked over at him like he had grown a third head. "Okay, fine, don't leave, but at least stop hovering."
The questions and chatter died down to leave silence, and it was another thirty minutes before Jordan's doctor came to find them in the waiting room. He was wearing scrubs, but he had removed his surgeon's gown and was smiling widely. Woody was on his feet immediately, ready to meet him before he could make it halfway across the room.
"She's fine," Drake answered the question that didn't need to be asked. "We're getting her ready to be moved back to her room right now. She did great, and actually -" He paused, reaching into his scrub top pocket for a small cylindrical container. There was a tiny bit of metal inside. "I know you're a detective and I'm sure a case has been opened about this, so… This is what caused the bleeding to continue. I think it's the tip of the knife used in the attack."
Woody reached out and gently took the container, the rest of the room falling away from around him as he looked at it – a piece of the weapon that almost took away the woman who meant more to him than anything in the world. Fury began to build in his stomach, nauseating in its intensity. He jumped when someone touched his shoulder, and nearly protested when Nigel slowly urged him to release the knife tip into his possession.
"I'll go analyze it," the other man said softly. "Please, let go." Almost reluctantly, Woody's fingers loosened so Nigel could slip the container into a pocket. "This will help us find the bastard."
"Doctor Cavanaugh will be returned to her room in just a few minutes, though I'm afraid only Detective Hoyt will be allowed in to see her." Drake braced the cop's arm supportively before turning and walking back through the double doors leading to the depths of the hospital.
xXx
It was well after four in the morning. Woody knew without having to look at the clock behind him; he could just feel it. He hadn't slept again since Jordan had been brought back from surgery the evening before, terrified that if he left her longer than it took to make use of the bathroom attached to her room to at least continue feeling human that something else would happen and she wouldn't come back this time. All he could do was stare at her face, or watch her chest rise and fall with her continued breathing.
Garret had been kind enough to check in on their house, and except him, the entire morgue staff, and Santana and Framus continually coming by or calling...Woody was alone. If you could count that as being alone. Lily had practically moved in that first twenty-four hours and, though he appreciated everything she had done for him, it was getting hard to take.
"I don't know how you do it, Jo," he whispered, bringing their clasped hands up to his lips. "Deal with such energetic people day in and day out. Nigel and Lily."
He could almost hear her sarcastic – or maybe loving – quip, but of course she was silent. "I miss you." He kissed her fingers, then grinned. "Silly, right? You're here, next to me, but I still miss you so much. You may as well be on another planet."
He fell silent then, unable to keep talking when he knew she couldn't respond. He'd heard the stories people told, about those who were unconscious being able to hear when someone was talking to them, but he didn't know what else to say. He had stopped begging her to wake up a while ago and she already knew how much he loved her. What else was there to say? So he mostly kept watch over her, never releasing her hand unless he was touching her face or her hair or adjusting a pillow.
The agony he had felt this whole time had never faded, numbness to the outside world or no. It was always there.
"I love you," he said quietly. "I know you know that, but...I do."
More silence, filled with beeps and hisses from the equipment.
But then, suddenly, there was a twitch in her fingers. So slight he thought he had imagined it, but there - again! Her index finger had definitely just moved, then her pinky. His eyes flashed to her face, but it remained unchanged.
"Jordan. Jo, sweetheart." He stood quickly from the chair and leaned with his elbows against the bed, close beside her as one hand ran over her hair and the other still tightly grasped hers. "Jordan. Come on. Come back now, Jo." All he could do was watch, not even realizing he wasn't breathing, when her eyes moved under her lids and her fingers twitched again.
It vaguely occurred to him to call for a nurse or someone, but he couldn't. He couldn't move, not even to press the call button. "Jordan..."
Finally – finally – her eyes fluttered open, catching a point somewhere far off before turning to settle blearily on his face. She blinked a few times as her breath quickened, becoming aware of the pain and quickly attempting to accommodate. Woody ran a comforting hand over her forehead and into her hair, unable to hide the wide smile pulling back his lips. "Welcome back."
She winced briefly, looking at the machines on the other side of her bed as her brain calculated her vitals, the medications in the IV, and the amount of fluids she was on before she glanced at him again and cracked him a small, Jordan-like grin he had missed so much. "You look like shit," she wheezed.
"Yeah, well - " He couldn't finish, too overcome with emotion. Instead he let himself fall down against her chest, tears of relief pouring over his cheeks. She didn't have the energy to lift an arm to rub his back, so she moved her head to nuzzle it gently against his. That just made him cry harder, but a choked laugh came out, too. Days of slowly going insane; he must have finally broken. She was awake. She really was awake, right? He wasn't dreaming, or having an exhausted hallucination?
"I'm in the ICU. What happened?" she asked hoarsely, forcing her words out through a tight throat.
Woody sat back, grounding himself into to the moment and finding some water for her. She took it shakily and sipped at it for a long few seconds, not noticing the silence that had fallen while he just looked at her, still trying to convince himself this was real. Needing one more bit of evidence to file away, he leaned forward again and kissed her gently on the mouth, then her cheek. Finally satisfied she wasn't a hallucination when she raised an eyebrow (though he could see a faint glimmer of love in her foggy eyes as they slowly found more focus), he brushed some hair from her face and helped her lie down again when she was done drinking.
"I need to get a nurse," he said, purposefully becoming distracted and not wanting to answer her question.
Jordan just hit the call button on the side of her bed, her fuzzy mind beginning to recognize what he was doing. "Problem solved."
It was another distraction for a few minutes as a cheerful nurse named Caren came into her room and, elated to find her awake, took her blood pressure, checked her heart and listened to her lungs with her stethoscope, and adjusted her IV. Jordan demanded to look at her file, which Caren hesitantly obliged to when she identified herself as a doctor, and she was able to get cursory information on her two surgeries and the injuries she had been admitted with - all without Woody having to open his mouth. A small filtering of memories began to come back, and she closed her eyes and handed the file back to Caren to slip into the sling at the foot of her bed. "Thank you," she whispered.
"I'm sure Doctor Drake is going to come by and see you first thing when he gets here at six." Caren patted Jordan's hand before she walked back to the door. "We've all been worried about you both. Maybe you can get this oaf to at least take a nap?"
As the nurse left and closed the door, Jordan opened her eyes again and looked at Woody, who was slouched in the chair he had hardly left for the last three days. "You haven't slept, have you?" she asked quietly, reaching out a weak hand to squeeze his.
He shrugged. "I...did. And I wish I hadn't." When she gazed at him in confusion, wordlessly asking for an explanation, he dropped his eyes and stared at her knuckles. "The first night, when you were brought in. For a few hours. I just...I got sick. A nurse sedated me. And then the other day Garret was here, said he'd wake me if something happened. I passed out most of the day and then...you were dead. I fell asleep and you died without me there."
"Hey, Farm Boy, look at me."
He did, suddenly quite unable to look away from that whiskey gaze he had loved for so long.
"I wasn't gonna leave without a fight." She gave him a tired grin and added, "And I'm not goin' anywhere now. I'd let you in here with me but jostling these stitches probably isn't the best idea. Pull that cot over here, would ya?" Grudgingly and grumbling the whole time, Woody released her hand and pulled the light metal-famed cot closer to her bed. "Good. Now take off your shoes and lie your tired ass down." As soon as he had, she reached her hand out again. Even though the cot was significantly lower than the hospital bed, there was little enough space between the two now and they could twine their fingers together easily.
"See?" she murmured, turning her head slightly to see him better as her eyelids started to get immensely heavy. "I'm gonna fall off again in a few minutes. Please, tell me what you know."
Woody sighed, a deep, weighted breath that spoke volumes before rolling to his side and resting his head in the crook of his bent elbow, trying to get comfortable. "How much do you remember?" he asked softly, staring at her intently.
"Bits and pieces. Shopping with Lily, seeing Maddie. Getting a phone call at home around...lunchtime, and then calling you." She paused, her eyebrows scrunching as she tried to recall more details that didn't want to come. If she were honest, she wasn't quite ready to remember them all herself. "You didn't answer -" He squeezed her hand, but she continued without comment or condemnation, "- and then...later in the day. Someone was on the porch. Knocked, but...forced his way in. Two people. Masks. I, uh...I tried to run upstairs for my gun, but they cornered me. In the kitchen. And then you were there. That's it."
"You beat off two of them?" Woody mused in awe, the situation taking on a new horror in his mind as he forced the images playing out in his mind to go away. "Damn, girl."
"Almost didn't make it," she reminded him grimly.
"But you did. And you forced me to...God, I'm not even sure what you made me do, but it worked." He kissed her fingertips, feeling the tension around his heart easing just a bit when she smiled wanly at him from her bed. "Santana and Framus checked other local hospitals to see if anyone was admitted with injuries you may have caused - no luck - but I have no doubt you did some lasting damage."
"A cast iron pan swung with enough force can cause a concussion, at the very least. Glad I finally got some use outta the thing." They both chuckled lightly at that, relieved for the humor in such a dark situation before she changed the subject with a question that had been gnawing at her for a few minutes. "You had to be sedated the first night? Why?"
"I told you," he said uncomfortably, "I got sick."
"You mean you went off the deep end." Her voice was getting faint again, but she was still alert enough to see through his half-truth. That was enough of an answer, though. "Luisa and Roz - have they found anything?"
Woody frowned, glad then that she had closed her eyes. He knew she hadn't fallen asleep yet and was still listening, but he didn't want her to see the anger that had come across his face. "No. They've found the woman who handed Mark - you know, the guy down in the lobby at the precinct - that card, and they hit a wall. I'll call them with what you remember later."
"...Card?" she prompted drowsily, definitely starting to drift off.
"Yeah, right before...um, right before I left to come home, I got this weird card. More like a postcard, not the folded kind. One sentence was written on it – 'monsters are variations from the accepted normal to a greater or a less degree'. There was...that's all there was." Telling her about the photograph, that someone had been watching her, seemed wrong and out of place right now somehow. He couldn't do it. But whether or not she saw through that one, she didn't let on. "That's how I knew to come home."
"Hmm," was the only acknowledgement he received. And then she stirred slightly, her brain attempting to sort through this information and find the right files to make sense of it. "Wait. Wait, what did it say?"
"Monsters are variations from the accepted normal to a greater or a less degree." He was never going to forget those words.
"Was there anything else?"
Hesitating, and leaving out the part about the picture, he added the second line that had been included. She nodded slowly, exhaustion starting to win out and pull her away. "Right." Just before she fell back into a much-needed healing sleep, she whispered, "East of Eden. One of my favorite books."
