When Jordan awoke, she wasn't sure where she was, looking up she quickly remembered where she was, and settled into Woody's arms. She could hear his heart beating underneath his dress shirt, steady, lub-dub, lub-dub. So unremitting, like him. She was sound asleep, his breathing even. The light swam through the window, and played on Woody's sleeping face. She could feel his pain the night before, she could remember what it was like to be that scared, so scared you couldn't breathe, couldn't think. He had fought a long, hard battle, and he had the scars to prove it. Slowly and carefully she peeled herself from his arms, with painstaking care, she made coffee as silently as she could. Soon the house was filled with the aroma of the spicy, black liquid.

Silently she made her way to the shower, she was ready to cleanse and rejuvenate herself from the filth of the day before. She turned on the hot water, watching the way rush by. She loved taking showers, they gave her time to think, in complete silence. Slowly she peeled her clothes away and climbed into his shower, allowing the steamy water to flow over her head, it always had a calming effect on her. She thought of how scared Woody must have been, his daughter dead, his wife far away. And him, forever trying to prove he was good enough, without warning tears began to wash down her face.

Why did he stay with her? He never had too, he had his own problems, things to deal with. Yet he willing pulled himself into all of her theories and rampages. She had nearly got him fired on more than one occasion and still he helped her, even if it cost him his job, his life or both.

She climbed out of the shower and dressed quickly. She poured herself a mug of strong, black coffee. Taking one more look at Woody's sleeping figure. He hadn't moved since she slipped out from under his arms, his arm resting on his stomach, his face turned to the right slightly. His tie was loosened, and his dress shirt unbuttoned. It was then she noticed what hung from his fingers limply, a pink hair barrette, small and plastic.

His cheek was soft against her lips when she kissed him goodbye. She didn't know what had attracted him to her, he was just this hick kid from Kewaunee Wisconsin. Nothing special as far as Detectives go, but he had this talent for reading her, she couldn't deny.

And she loved him, no matter what she did, she couldn't deny that fact. He was the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. He was the song that would lull her to sleep every night for the rest of her life. She could hear his voice, how it trembled when he spoke of Kody. Kody, what a name, how it rolled off of his tounge, smooth as silk. He loved saying it.

As she walked down the street, coffee in hand, hair pulled back into a slick ponytail. She found herself noticing things she had never noticed before. They way that children laughed as they walked down the street. She noticed the birds, she noticed the way the trees wafted threw the wind, the way the old, rotten leaves floated to the ground, gently.

When she reached the morgue, she felt satisfied that, that building was wear she belonged. She felt the warm love for the people inside of it, Nigel, Bug, Garret, Lily, Peter, even Devan, even if jealousy got the best of her sometimes. These people were her family, they watched her back. She rode the elevator up with a new revolution. She wasn't upset that the elevator was too slow, or that the patriots had lost. For the first time since she was ten, the world seemed... bearable, because someone understood her. And when those doors opened, with a chime, she was ready, for everything.

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Woody awoke alone. At first he thought Jordan being there was just a dream, she had never slept close to him. This was all just a dream and he awoke alone. He was used to awaking alone, for the most part, it had never bothered him before now. Now he felt his world had just tilted and he was shaken off his footing. Then he saw the used towel folded neatly on his kitchen chair. And the stale coffee in his coffee machine. She had been there, he could still smell her perfume, like the smell of a candy shop on a Sunday afternoon. He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. He noticed his answering machine blinking 1 over and over. He pressed play, and immediately grinned when he heard Jordan's voice.

"Hey Farm boy, I just didn't want you to wake up and have no clue where I was. I am at work and it is eight thirty nine in the morning. After intense interrogation by Lily and Bug, Nigel explained that I fell asleep at your apartment, I have a message from him that the Sullivan file is on your coffee table by the September issue of guns & ammo. Anyways, Garret is about to have a coronary because I am due in autopsy. Some guy killed himself by jumping off a bridge, I won't be able to eat hamburger meat for a month. I wanted to know if I could come over for dinner tonight, my treat, uh, give me a call when you wake up... I'll talk to you later." He smiled, she always knew just what to say to make him smile.

Picking up the phone and called her, telling her dinner would be great, they were back to that awkward, slightly uncomfortable phase that they were at when they we're tracking down that sickboy23 character two years earlier. It surprised him how much they had grown since then, both of them.

Then he found himself dialing another familiar number, one he never pictured himself dialing again in a million years.

He wasn't sure why he was calling Tiffany, he didn't know what he was going to say, but for some reason he craved to hear her voice, a voice he hadn't heared in over five years.

"Hello?" she said softly, drowsily, he almost lost his courage. She sounded the same, the same, soft voice, same lilting, baby voice he used to hunger after.

"Hey." He whispered, he could almost hear her sit upright.

"Woody?!" she stipulated in surprise. "What are you calling for?" he could hear a man ask her who it was groggily, she dismissed him with a "its no one honey, no one at all." It made him laugh bitterly when he heard that. She dismissed him almost as easily as Annie did. "What?" she demanded, her baby voice rising an octave.

"I'm not sure." By now he was lacing the pink barrett threw his sweaty fingers nervously. "I just needed to hear your voice once more... that's all Tiff." He could hear her laugh resentfully with a indelicate snort.

"Well you heard it." With that she hung up.

Woody slid to the ground, still coiling the barrett. He felt... sad, and somehow released from the iron grip that had him held for so long. Although he wasn't sure why, he missed Tiffany. Not in the way, he missed her as his wife, for he no longer thought of her that way. No, he missed the mother of his daughter, he missed her laugh, he missed her eyes.

He wanted his daughter back; he wanted to see her face. He stared at the light streaming threw the blinds and chuckled bitterly, he didn't need anything else, lying down on his kitchen floor, he prayed, God take him, just spare his daughter.