Note: This is the first of the last four chapters!

"I resent that Princess Sensitivity comment!" Doctor Stiles joked as he closed the door behind Jordan, he could almost feel her eyes burning holes in the door. For a hospital room it looked pretty descent, except the wallpaper that looked as if someone puked mauve all over it.

Woody looked awful, his cheeks were pale, his eyes inane and sunken. His hands shook, he no longer looked like the sweet but slightly cocky detective from Kewaunee, he looked like a worn veteran, on the edge.

"So what do you want to talk about?" Howard asked, rubbing his head with the palm of his hand.

"Aren't you the shrink, you ask the questions I answer." Woody slowly turned to face him, wincing in pain as his body shifted.

"Okay then, you want to talk about what you were feeling when the whole Malden thing reared its ugly head?" Suddenly Woody's vacant eyes darkened, like a storm over a ocean.

"How do you think I felt?" Woody snapped, his head hurt, his mouth was like wool and the light bite angrily at the back of his eyes. The sun was peeking over the horizon, sending shafts of robin's egg blue and pink threw the sky, as the sun bled seven different shades of orange.

"Alas, I don't know the answer to that ... only you do."

Woody just wanted to make it all go away, erase the past few days and start over. "I felt... god, I'm not sure how to describe it... low."

"Why?"

"Jordan... I wanted to help her, but she pushed me away." His voice quivered, as his thoughts gathered and raced threw his mind at top speed, never giving him a moment to process them. "I was cool with it, all the teasing, the hanging out... but after a while it felt like we were only doing it out of sheer numbness." His voice softened as if savoring each memory of them going to baseball games, and watching movies on the couch, a bowl of stale popcorn in between them.

"And what about when she was kidnapped?" Doctor Stiles asked, not looking up from his trusty yellow legal pad, he didn't look up so he didn't see the look of pain that flushed Woody's face.

"I have never felt fear like that... ever." Woody murmured, his heart pounding in his chest as the feeling of fear raised back into his throat, tightening, his hands suddenly gripped the bedrails.

"One second she was there, and the next she wasn't... I was supposed to watch her, protect her... and I didn't do that."

"I have to say Woody... you have no manner of luck at all." Howard stated matter-of-factly.

"Gee thanks Doc." Woody bit out sarcastically.

"I mean it, dear god, first your ex girlfriends dad is thrown out of a moving plane... then the whole Malden incident, then Jordan, well she tried to off herself, then she gets kidnapped, and to top it all off, this happens." He clucked his tongue and shook his head in a sympathetic manner. "As I said, absolutely no luck at all."

"How in the hell do you know about my ex girlfriends dad?" Woody asked, appalled.

"Rumors spread fast around here... very little amusements." Howard continued scribbling on his notepad. "What about the dreams?" Boy, Woody thought, when he gets down to a point, he gets down to a point.

"I have this dream; it's different every time..." he swallowed hard, remembering each little detail, all the way down to the red smudge on Jordan's face. "I'm running up the stairs, I'm running up the stairs because I hear a gunshot and the elevator is..." his voice trailed off slowly, as he swallowed, sweat breaking out on his forehead.

"All I can think the whole time is she's going to die, and it'll be all my fault... and when I open the door." A lone tear found its way down his smooth cheek, his eyes were bright with thought.

"What happens when you open the door?" Howard asked, perking up suddenly.

"She's on the floor, crimson all around her... it makes her face look so white, her eyes just stare up. And theirs always someone standing over her... mostly its Max... but once it was me." His voice shook now, Howard had to look at him with a new admiration, He was in a strange town, with people he barely new, and he made a life for himself... he made himself into someone new, and he fell in love, with someone who loved him back.

"And it keeps me awake..." Woody whispered as an afterthought.

When Doctor Stiles emerged from the hospital room, Jordan was waiting on a chair just outside, a new worry line seemed to appear since the time he last saw her.

"How is he?" she asked, standing, her eyes glazed with worry.

"He's guilt ridden, for everything, Malden, the whole Kidnapping ordeal, you trying to... well you know... all of this in his mind, is his fault... I'm also seeing the beginning signs of Post traumatic stress disorder... he'll be okay, in time." He saw the way Jordan's face crumpled. "You have to help him, he can't and won't do it alone." Jordan nodded, and quickly shook the stunned look off her face. "He'll be getting sleeping pills when he gets out of the hospital, make sure he takes them." He patted her on the elbow gently as he turned to leave. "Oh and Jordan... he really loves you, be careful."

She smiled as she watched him walk out to his car. It was all overwhelming, before it had been a steady stream of one night stands and drunken affairs, nothing too big, all kept her from getting too close to anyone, everything was a neat and tidy package... and she never got hurt.

But then she met Woody, he was different, sweet, and he cared, which was worth a lot in Jordan's book. He never asked her for anything, he never pushed or prodded, he just waited. Hoping in time that she would feel something in her soul that would let her know that he would never hurt or abandon her, he would never make her do anything... he would never even dream of change anything about her, not a hair on her head. And like a spooked horse she slowly came around... with a lot of soft coaxing she came to realize, she needed him as much as he needed her.

Her hand paused on the doorknob; she knew what she'd find when she opened it. He would be pale and weak, a tangle of tubes and wires, but he was her Woody, and he'd be okay, he was as stubborn and as neglected as her. She smiled faintly and opened the door, she was astonished at him, he was sitting up, for the first time in days, he didn't look like a china doll. When he saw her, a small smile tugged at his lips, and then it grew as it broadened across his features.

"Hi." She whispered, raising a small hand, before her courage could flee. "I'm sorry Woody, for everything."

His smile was still glued to his face "For what baby?" he asked, grabbing at the corner of her coat, that was the only thing he could reach, he pulled her toward him, until she was standing at the side of the bed, looking down at him with her whiskey eyes.

Suddenly her eyes grew serious as she knelt down on the bed. "Woody, I'm sorry about what I said to you at the restaurant... about not knowing you."

Woody started to shake his head, but she gave him a glare that quickly silenced him. "I had no right to do that, I do know you... you're my Woody."

He was watching her with his intense, frosty blue eyes, his smile had slipped away. "Jordan, you were right... I was empty, I couldn't sleep or eat, It took this to realize I really did change... Listen, when I look at you, from now on, I don't know who you'll picture, I'm hoping you'll know that it's me." He was holding her hand, his thumb stroking her fingers softly, she smiled as she watched his eyes close, as he went off somewhere else, for the first time in weeks, he could fall asleep without fear.

She stayed behind, long after he was dreaming in paradise, just playing with the tips of his hair. Watching his face, as he slept for what seemed the first time in weeks. His hand still clutching hers, he would squeeze softly every once in a while as if assuring himself she was still there.

Slowly, after what seemed hours she got up, kissing him on the forehead, she leisurely walked to her car, the day had come creeping on, slowly, the sun had risen, and the sky turned blue as the clouds parted and drifted away, leaving only cold snow as a testimony that it had screamed its rage out on the earth.

As she opened the door to her apartment, she was greeted by a bounding ball of fluff; she knelt down and rubbed it, just as Woody was stroking her hand only about an hour ago. "Hey Bud, you hungry?" she asked as she set her keys down with a plunk next to her purse on the door side table. Just as she pulled the half eaten bag of puppy chow down from the cupboard above her sink, she noticed it, his work suit jacket, sitting discarded on a dining room chair; she set a bowl of food down on the floor, as the pup bounded over to gulp down the food hungrily.

She walked over to the jacket, walking slowly as if frightened that it would spook. She lifted it, careful not to wrinkle it, holding it by the shoulders. She wrapped around her shoulders, slipping her arms threw the armholes, she beamed, it was loose on her, the arms fell past her hands, and it hung loose. It smelled like him, like soap and musky cologne. Pulling the folds of fabric close to her as she stared out the window, sitting on the windowsill she watched the world pass by, people going on with their lives, far below her apartment window.