Note: This is going to be a really long story, I'm sorry if it's too long let me know and I'll wrap it up.
Disclaimer: I know how you all love disclaimers, so you all know what is coming next... I don't own crossing Jordan and I never will... there, now you don't have an excuse to sue me.
She could hear voices, Woody was talking to his RN, she could hear bits and pieces of the conversation as she came closer to the door.
"Remember Presley, you can never have too much sugar." Woody was telling the RN, she had to smile, he loved sugar. She almost forgot that she was angry with him.
Slowly, gathering her courage with all her strength she pushed open the door, the dog tags clutched tightly in her hand the cold metal felt sweaty against her palm, her face stale and flinty. They studied each other for a few moments, their eyes not meeting, waiting for one or the other to move.
Woody made the first move.
"Hey baby girl, I missed you." He said almost ashamed, his blue eyes were wreathed in dark circles. She walked over, careful to keep her eyes from his, if she did her anger would melt.
"Hey." She whispered void of any emotion.
He had a suspicion something was wrong, it was more knowing than suspicion.
"I haven't seen you in forever come here." He tried to smile, but the look of malice on her face kept it from creeping across his features.
"How come you never told me." She whispered, in a deathly quiet voice, it bowled Woody over for a moment, he was left stunned.
Swallowing hard, he whispered "Tell you what?" his palms began to sweat, and his face had an expression of bewilderment. It enraged Jordan, she had come so far, knocking down those walls, chip by chip she came down from her pedestal where she was carefully removed from the world, to him, and he didn't trust her enough to tell her simple things, he didn't tell her anything anymore. She would be talking to him and he would be somewhere else completely, his eyes would be glazed over and stormy, he would stare off and in a minute be somewhere else completely.
"You know damned well what." She stated, thrusting the dog tags out for him to inspect. She immediately felt bad; the look that came over his face was unforgettable, pain crept across his blue eyes as he turned them over and over in his hands, as if committing them to memory, a long, solitary tear fell down his cheek.
"Mom told you?" he whispered, not taking his eyes off of the metal in his large hands.
Her voice softened, but she made no attempt to move from her spot from the doorway. "Yeah." Was all she could say.
"He died April 27th, I was eleven... 1987." She knew what it was like to lose a parent, he was a bit older when his father died, and he knew the same pain she did. She could feel the stinging bite of tears as the flood of warm wetness soaked her cheeks.
"Woody," her voice softened, relenting she moved from her spot in the doorway, and sat on the edge of his bed, putting a hand gingerly on his forehead, wiping away the hair from his sweaty skin. He was like a child, playing with the dog tags, watching them intensely with his clear blue eyes, twisting them between his fingers. "You can tell me, Woody... Woody!" She was begging now, cupping his face in her willowy hands.
He pulled away gently, "No... No, you have your own problems you have to deal with, you don't need mine too." She wanted to cry, she had been awful to misjudge him so badly, He trusted her completely, and he was just scared. He looked so little, lying in that bed, staring at the tags, completely memorized by the metallic sound they made when they clashed together.
"Woody! You can tell me anything." He shook his head like a difficult child
"No, I can't... I can't." he whispered. Shaking his head again.
"Yes Woody, you can... you can, I promise, you can tell me anything." She pleaded, struggling to look into his eyes, when he looked up she saw it, they weren't the blue eyes of the happy-go-lucky detective that she loved, they were the eyes of a boy, lost and alone... without a friend in the world.
His face looked to be of time itself, he was pale and wasting away. She fought back tears as she watched him regress to childhood. She stood, she needed to find Doctor Stiles, he was shrinking away, slowly she backed out of the room.
"I'll be back Wood. I have a few things to tie up... I'm not leaving... I promise."
As her hand hit the cold doorknob she could hear his voice, barely discernable, but still it was there.
"I h-have these d-dreams." He had regressed farther than she had thought, he was stammering, and his head was down, shame filled his face. His eyes met her, the anguish that met her eyes was something she recognized, she used to see it when she looked in the mirror.
"What??" she asked eager for some sign that he could understand that she wanted to help him.
"W-when I sleep. I-I... H-Have dreams, I-I can't make them go J-Jordan." She took a step toward him; her level of misunderstanding was so deep.
"Tell me." Was all she could say.
"I-Its C-complicated, D-do you remember M-Malden?" he asked, his voice void of the happiness he once knew so well.
"Yeah." She could feel her bottom lip tremble, her hands were sweaty and she could feel her entire body shaking. "Yeah." She repeated.
"I-I have a dream, a-and I'm running up those s-stairs, god I was so, s-scared. A-and when I open the d-door..." his voice broke and then trailed away, as if the wind that howled steadily outside caught it up and carried it away to some far off land.
"I-I can never r-reach you... a-and when I-I do, y-you're so cold." Tears fell down his face as he openly sobbed, pent up emotion from the last few weeks fell down his face and sodden his chin. Her chin quivered as she rushed over to him, wrapping her arm around his neck she kissed the top of his head, as he sobbed into her forearm.
"Shh," she whispered into his ear from where she sat, leaning her left side into her back. "It'll all be okay, huh... don't cry." She tried desperately to calm him as she cried along with him. "Don't cry, I'm here, you can reach me... I'm right here."
When Jordan stumbled to her car, blinded by hot tears, she felt pain... a searing pain that left a gaping wound in her soul. He was falling; she had seen it in herself not too long ago. She stared sightlessly at her silver SUV, before she knew what she was doing, she threw her keys against the door with all her might.
"No!" She wailed, "Not Him! Not Now!" she spun around angrily as she shouted at the sky, a few bystanders stopped to stare. She stumbled blindly backwards, hitting her car, as she did the lump in her throat fell to her stomach... she stumbled to the ground, exhaustion taking over as she breathed deep, her mascara running, all of a sudden she didn't want to live anymore.