Questions. Questions. And still more questions. Jordan felt like she was being picked apart by the FBI.

After the attempt on her life, her security had been beefed up substantially. At night, Gail was still there, but the bureau had also posted two other agents outside her door. She was carefully transported back and forth between the bureau building and her hotel, often put in a car and driven for blocks before the agents would double back and get her into her room. It all seemed like a bit much for a ME from Boston.

And the agents were still questioning her, although not quite as intensely as they had the first couple of days. Now it was more technical questions about the autopsy. And the bureau was talking about shipping the body from the Boston morgue to the FBI headquarters.

Upon hearing this, Jordan jokingly asked Agent Winstead about a prisoner exchange – the body for her. He didn't think it was very funny.

"No one in this outfit has any sense of humor," Jordan thought. She missed Nigel and Garrett. She missed their humor and their ability to work as a unit. The FBI and she were not playing well together.

Finally, one afternoon when she had taken enough questions, and was so tired of being at either the bureau or her hotel room, she picked up the phone and called Nigel.

"Why hello, love," she heard the lanky Englishman say over the phone lines, "How's it going up there?"

"It's going, Nige. I feel like I'm being picked apart by vultures."

"I'm sorry. Anything I can do?"

"Come get me?"

"No can do, love. But I did hear that the FBI called Macy this morning and requested the body be shipped to their office. Macy's even talking about accompanying the body."

"Garrett's coming here?"

"Looks like it."

Jordan sighed. It would be good to see someone from home.

"And how's everything else going?" asked Nigel.

Jordan was confused. "What else?"

"You know...Woody....you....hotel rooms complete with massage oils...."

"You have too much time on your hands, Nige. There is nothing going on with me and Woody anymore."

Nigel reflected for a minute. After Woody had left, Jordan had seemingly put the young detective behind her. She rarely spoke of him publicly. Most of her friends just figured that she had put a stake through that relationship the same way she had her others. Over, done, forgotten about. Get on with the future.

Nigel knew better. He had seen, and still saw, the pain in Jordan's eyes when someone would bring up his name. He had witnessed her reactions when she would flip open an old file and see his handwriting. And only he knew that Jordan still slept in Woody's old Boston PD sweatshirt that he had accidentally left at her apartment.

More than that, he knew that it had taken Woody's leaving to make Jordan tear down the emotional walls she had built around herself all these years. Jordan, in her own way, had an epiphany. She realized that those walls had cost her more through the years than she may ever recover – friendships, jobs, relationships, and most of all Woody. Not wanting to go through the pain of these losses again, she had painstakingly sought to remove the obstacles in her life that kept people at arm's length. It took a lot of therapy with Dr. Stiles, and more effort on her part than she would ever admit, but the walls came down.

A heroic, celebratory event that created a softer, warmer Jordan. A Jordan that most people, including himself, found intensely appealing. But, perhaps unknowingly even to herself, Jordan had given her heart to her young detective. And he had unwittingly taken it with him when he left Boston. She had never recovered her heart – it was still Woody's – a fact that Nigel would bet good money that Woody was not aware of.

"Well, just a little wishful thinking on my part, love," Nigel said, in a low, comforting voice. "I'd just like to see you really happy again."

"Thanks. But he's incredibly busy. And he's changed, Nige."

"How so?"

Jordan paused for a minute. "He's harsher, more serious. He doesn't smile anymore." Indeed, now that Jordan thought about it, she hadn't seen Woody's 10 million watt smile once since she had been in New York.

"It's a serious situation, Jor."

"I know..it's just..."

"Can't capture the past and the future's a little scary?"

"Yeah. And a little bit of my past would go a long way in helping me right now."

"Well, as best my computer is telling me right now, Macy's due to fly out of here with the body at 10 a.m. tomorrow. So maybe that will help."

"It does. Thanks, Nige. Take care."

"You take care. Call me if you need me."

Jordan hung up the phone and ran her fingers through her hair. Garrett was coming. That would be great.

===========================================================

The next morning, Jordan found herself in an unfamiliar autopsy room. As she was looking around, making sure everything was laid out that she needed, the body of Scalanti was wheeled in and behind it was a very familiar face.

"Garrett!" Jordan went over to hug her boss.

"Hey, let me look at you. Heard you had a little excitement last week. Are you okay?" Garrett asked, referring to the shooting.

"Fine, just fine. Ready to come home."

"Any clue when they're going to let you?"

"Not yet."

Assorted FBI agents, including Woody, were filing into the room. Step by step, Garrett and Jordan went through the autopsy procedure with them, beginning with trace and working through the Y-incision. Jordan took particular sadistic pleasure in describing in great detail each of the gory wounds and what each hollow-tipped bullet did. She was more than gratified to see that several of the agents, including Winstead, were turning that sickening shade of green. Finishing up, she snapped off her gloves and rolled the body into the crypt.

"Was all that really necessary, Jordan?" Woody asked, referring to her colorful descriptions.

"For me it was, Farm Boy."

They both stopped and looked at each other, startled. Jordan held her breath. She hadn't called him Farm Boy the whole time she had been in New York. Suddenly, it was like time stood still. They were back in Boston, in her morgue, and he had never left for New York. Five years seemed to melt away at the turn of a phrase.

"Jordan..." Woody whispered, reaching out to touch her face, only to be interrupted by Garrett.

"Are you ready?" Garrett asked Jordan. They were going back to her hotel room for lunch.

"Yeah, she's ready," Woody replied, his FBI face returning, "We'll get the agents to escort you two over."

Jordan swallowed and closed her eyes. "That was just a little too intense," she thought. But she would have given her next paycheck to know what Woody was going to say before they were interrupted.

======================================

Garrett stayed for two days. Jordan was incredibly happy to have someone from home to talk to. And Garret knew her well – in many ways better than Nigel. Dr. Macy was a combination big brother, friend, and semi-father figure. She had confessed more to him than she ever had her parish priest.

The first day, they were still working with the FBI in autopsy. The feebees had their own ME and they conferred with him. The next day, they played catch up until it was time for Garret's plane to leave.

"Honestly, Jo, how are you doing?"

"I'm okay. I'm ready to come home, but there's no telling when that's going to happen."

"How's it going, working with Woody again?"

Jordan tried to plaster a happy smile on her face, but Garrett was seeing right through it. "He's changed Gar. He's not the same Woody that was in Boston."

"So I gathered."

"He's more serious. Never smiles."

"Well, he's FBI now, they're not particularly known for their sense of humor."

"I know. Central casting has changed him more than he realizes."

"Maybe you can put a smile back on his face?"

Jordan shrugged. "I don't think so. I see him during the day, but I have a feeling Woody's moved on."

And as much as it hurt her to admit it, deep down inside she knew her hunch was right. During the day, he was Agent Hoyt up one side and down the other. He was cool. He was professional. And other than that one situation when she called him Farm Boy, he was distant.

She had lain awake at nights, after he left her in Gail's care, and wondered at the distance between the two. She had made an effort to keep in touch with Woody after he left Boston. Cards, e-mails, anything to keep the communication open. Gradually, he stopped returning her e-mails. Her birthday and Christmas cards went unacknowledged. She had hoped against hope, when she found out she was in Woody's care as long as she was in New York, that the distance between them would melt. If anything, he had become more wary of her, handing her off to other agents for them to escort her, spending only the time necessary for him to do his job in her presence.

All the signs were adding up for her. Woody had moved on. He had a new life. He may even have a new girlfriend. She swallowed hard. If he did, she didn't want to know. And she definitely didn't want to see them together. She didn't think she could handle it.