Jordan didn't look back again, snow swirled around in the crisp night air, a fresh sheet of power blanketed the street, casting an eerie afterglow. She thought he was real, she could touch him, feel him, and she had this connection with him. He was distant and cold, although she could see the truth and despair just beyond the guardedness. She hadn't meant for that to happen, with each step she felt her stomach calm and her anger settle.
Woody was bewildered, he couldn't move, his legs were numb. His hands shook as he stared down at his lasagna, it had barely been touched, she was right, he had changed. When he left Kewaunee he had twelve hundred dollars in his pocket and a suitcase, it was all he needed to start a life somewhere new. Finding the apartment was easy, it was the homesickness that was the killer, he loved Kewaunee, he loved his family... he loved Annie, but he was too stubborn to go back, and besides, who was he if he spent his entire life wondering what would have happened if he didn't leave.
Annie, for the longest time he thought she was the love of his life. She knew him, everything, she could feel his life, but he wasn't good enough for her. Her father said it best; she would never marry a cop, never. So he did what anyone would have, he ran.
The pain and disappointment was too much for him to take, and twelve hundred dollars later, he found himself cowering in Boston, licking his wounds. Boston was different, he expected it to be, his girl was gone, and he was totally alone in a strange new place. Reinventing himself to be someone he wasn't was difficult for him; he didn't like the shell of a man that he had become.
His breathing became shallow and rapid as he thought. He found Jordan like a cool stream through a burning desert. What started as lust, wanting to obtain the unobtainable, soon became something more for him, something unworldly, and something he could never have had with Annie.
He stood quickly, managing to look civil, as soon as he reached the door, he was running. Slipping on a bit of ice, he quickly regained himself. The car was locked, damned that car, he turned on his heels and began running down the ice slicked sidewalk, dodging couples and middle aged women with shopping bags as he did.
It was something in the way he saw inside of her, like a moth to a flame she followed, a willing participant. And she got burnt. She didn't know how long she was standing on her corner, staring at her window, all lit up with Christmas lights that flickered off and on. She denied it with every ounce of her being, she loved him, and he had seen it from that night in the desert, and from the moment that wall was put up he was chipping away.
And chip by chip, that wall came down, slowly and patiently he waited for her to slow her pace and eventually stop running. And she loved him for it. She loved the way his hair smelled, the way his eyes sparkled when he looked at her. He was her Woody, the same Woody that would save the mango in his fruit salad for her, he would sing yellow submarine on the top of his lungs just to make her laugh, Woody. Something in her would always be drawn to his innocence and his Midwestern charm.
The streetlamp glowed neon orange across the street, somewhere far off a siren blew, she wondered where they were going, if someone was hurt or dying, if someone was as alone as she felt right now. A dog barked down the street, knocking her back to her wits. She looked down at her dress; it went down to her knee, olive green, halter top, tight in all the right places, she was snug as a bug in her wool coat though. It was over, just like that, in an instant it was gone.
That's when she felt it, the cold barrel of a gun pressed to the back of her neck. She felt fear trickle up her spine as the man placed his arm around her throat pressing hard, she felt the air being squeezed from her throat, and she could hear the man's raspy breath.
"Take whatever you want." She said coolly, dropping her purse at his feet. he turned to face Jordan, the smell of tobacco and cheap beer wafted to her nostrils, as he released her neck to grab a hold of her elbow with tremendous force.
"I don't want you money Doctor Cavanaugh," he jeered at her toothily, Jordan felt primal fear, a fear that paralyzes your senses and hypnotizes the brain, she couldn't even scream.
"Then what?" she asked her voice shaking, taking in the men behind him. His eyes met her; they were cold, distant and heartless, black. Footsteps, Woody, she could tell it was him, he was chasing after her.
"Detective Hoyt!" the man exclaimed in mock surprise. Woody stopped dead in his tracks, snow twirled around him. He looked so different, and somehow calm, his emaciated figure, his hallow, sunken eyes and ashen, disconsolate face. She couldn't speak, she couldn't tell him that she didn't mean what she had said at the restaurant, she did know him, he was Woody. The same Woody that would sing yellow submarine at the top of his lungs just to make her laugh, the same Woody that would save the mango in his fruit salad for her, Woody.
"Leave her out of this, she's got nothing to do with it." His voice was so soft, like it was muted by the snow that fell around him.
"Oh, Detective, with you, she has everything to do with this," a cold rush of wind brushed by them, sending Jordan's hair in every direction. "Now I thought we made are selves very clear, I asked nicely, and I do not like to repeat myself." He caressed Jordan's face with the butt of the gun, she heard the tell tale sound of a gun cocking, she knew that sound well, she was a cops daughter. Jordan could see tables in his eyes turning; she could feel the thoughts running threw his head as he reached for his gun...
Woody wasn't sure why he pulled his gun, maybe to redirect danger to him instead of Jordan. Images flashed threw his brain like grainy home videos, them sharing dinner at the Pouge, watching movies on the couch, all snuggled together. He had never felt what he had felt with Jordan, and he'd never feel it again with anyone else. It all happened so quick, he didn't even have time to register anything besides the man pushing Jordan into someone else, and even then all he could see was her.
The man was a threat, a threat to Jordan and he had to be stopped, even as he heard the sound like a car backfiring, and felt the sticky, hot feeling of blood trickle down his side, he fired his gun, he wasn't sure if he had hit the man, all he knew is he fired until there weren't anymore bullets left to fire.
"No!" Jordan wailed, struggling to free herself from the grip of the man holding her middle so tight she could barely breathe. Woody stumbled around for a moment, a glazed look in his sapphire eyes. After a moment of shock, she noticed that the man had released her, they were climbing back into there SUV's and driving away like nothing happened.
Jordan darted to him, catching his head as he fell to the ground with a soft thud. His eyes, they were terror filled and confused, they darted around in panic, but came to settle on her she noticed the blood gathering in a pool underneath him, mixing with the snow, forming slush. She allowed tears to fall freely as she dialed 911.
"You're going to be okay Wood, paramedic's are on their way." She held his head in her lap as she pressed on the wound, hoping against all hope that somehow he would live, and be her Woody. He watched her as she spoke to the dispatcher, after a few seconds of a glazed stare; he reached up with a blood soaked hand and stroked her face.
"Hi Jordan," he said in a child like whisper, "I'm sorry,"
She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth to stifle a sob, after a moment she regained herself. "For what?" she asked smoothing his hair with her own blood stained hand.
"All of the blood, Jo, are you okay?" he asked, searching around frantically. She pushed him down back into her lap.. "I can't reach you." He whispered, looking her straight in the eyes. A tale tell blaze of sirens and a blue and red glow on the snow on the street signaled police, it took them long enough. She exhaled, looking down at Woody's sweat caked forehead, placed a gentle kiss on his cheek. "Shh, it's all going to be over soon." She whispered with more confidence than she felt