Okay, almost done, this story is the worst story I have ever written it is so hard you guys I can't wait for it to be over!
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Mac looked up with a shocked expression plastered to her white face. Jordan looked down and dropped his lifeless hand as the doctors rushed past her. Angela rested her head against the double paned window, tears running down her face. Garret, Bug and Nigel looked in between each other gravely.
Jordan turned around slowly, breathing heavily, not a person moved.
"He's gone... he died." She stated dazedly wandering away from the group of people.
Angela stood immobile with shock. "I have to... I have to call Cal, I'll be back." She walked down the hall determinedly with her head down. Nigel tried to touch her but she yanked away.
"Mackenzie, come here honey... we have to go home." Jordan whimpered gathering her purse and keys.
"Jordan you shouldn't be driving." Garret rebuked softly, trying to take hold of her keys.
'What are you talking about." She retorted stubbornly "I can drive, I'm fine." He grabbed her keys,
"No your not... Come on Mac," Mac looked stunned, confused, like she was out of place somehow.
"No," she interjected "I wanna stay with Woody." She met his eyes with grit and willpower.
"Come on Mac, there's nothing we can do."
There's nothing we can do.
Mac had heard that far too many times to count. Benny the Voice had told her that when her mother died and he took her. Woody told her that when he found Cory Taylor dead in that alleyway what seemed forever ago.
There was no way she was leaving him, after all Jordan said it herself, he would never leave her.
"No." she gritted her teeth and clenched her fists. Garret sighed tiredly, looking to Jordan for help, they were all weary and wanted to go home.
"Mackenzie... come on, lets go... please." Tears were in Jordan's whiskey colored eyes. Slowly, Mac walked up to her, taking her hand in her own.
"Okay Jordan." She whispered, Jordan nodded and allowed the little girl to lead her from the hospital room.
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"Hi Cal, this is Angie... um... I'm afraid I have some bad news... it's Woody, Cal, call me." Was the message she left on his answering machine. She set the phone down gently on its cradle and slid to the floor.
Was it only hours ago that he had been talking to her joking with her.
"Love?" She looked up to see Nigel looming over her.
"He's gone isn't he?" she asked almost frantic. He nodded grimly; she shook her head insistently "No... he was right here... I just talked to him." He knelt down next to her. Not saying a thing, just letting her weep on his shoulder.
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Jordan would have ran, if this was any other situation she would have in a heartbeat. But someone needed her, someone counted on her. That night, Jordan and Mackenzie had come home to Jordan's stone cold, empty apartment building. Mac wasn't even talking anymore and Jordan was close to breaking down at any minute.
Mackenzie needed her, for days she refused to even come out of Jordan's apartment and ate little. But slowly, they realized that life does go on, even if it feels like you can't move.
Now as Jordan stood in front of Woody's apartment, holding the gold key up in the dim artificial light in the hallway, she wondered if it was that easy. Slowly she slid the key into the deadbolt, the key making a metallic sound when it slid into place. Mackenzie buried her head into Jordan's pant leg for warmth, security, protection, whatever it was she was scared of.
Everything was as it was left. Mail sitting on the table by the door, a stray suit jacket draped over a chair, half eaten box of Chinese food on the table. Mac scrambled to her bed and retrieved the doll that Woody had bought her that stormy night she had shown up at his house.
Jordan touched her finger lightly to the undusted mantelpiece, touching each insignificant dust collector, something that didn't mean that much to her, but meant the world to him. His Antique Robots.
By the way his things looked, you would never be able to tell that Mac had once never lived there. Her pictures were stuck to the fridge, toys scattered on the floor, photographs in frames on his desk. That's what Jordan was looking at when she saw the creased paper sitting neatly in the middle, a gaudy ball point pen sitting on top of it.
The sky was a cumbersome grey, the air hung thick with the threat of snow. Jordan swallowed hard and looked at the little girl staring out of the window sadly, watching the city move below her like she was watching ants moving about there ant hole. Jordan looked back down at the legal looking paper, she knew what it was, that was the form that could legally make Woody her guardian, he was ready to sign it, but never got the chance.
Without another thought Jordan signed. Suddenly all of her fears melted away, all the issues seemed pointless, that little girl was as close to hers as she would get, and nothing would take her away from her again. The little she knew of Woody she would stick with her forever, existing only in he memory, but being ever present and everlasting.
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How could Jordan ever forget the way the wide spread trees loomed like ghosts throughout the graveyard, hidden by a thick, silver fog. The stretch of green rolling grass held what seemed miles and miles of gravestones, they seemed to Jordan a mocking reminder of all that she had lost.
Everyone was dressed in black, and Jordan was no exception dress in a simple black lace dress, stockings and shoes, Nigel had to notice that she even looked graceful when she grieved.
Angela was doing her best to keep her composure, often she would be seen burying her head into Nigel's arm, but when she reappeared her eyes would be red rimmed but never would she be seen with tears.
Cal and Shelby were there, Cal broke down a few times, but was doing well considering, his family was gone, it had only really ever been Woody and Him. Shelby was doing her best to console her husband, and Jordan noted she looked like she had lost a dear friend, though Woody and herself weren't that close.
But the one who took everyone's breath away was Mackenzie Renee Logan. She stood gracefully with a humble bouquet of flowers clutched in her tiny hand, her hair falling around her shoulders, leaning back on Jordan's legs for support. The little girl showed them all what it was to be human, how life could throw curveballs and how people could rise above it.
Lily, Garret and Bug did their best, but nothing could be done, the damage was done, Lily would ever so often run a consoling arm down Jordan's reassuring herself that she was still Jordan's friend. Bug looked sad enough as well as Garret, who felt like he was losing a son to his own surprise. A few of the guys from the PD showed up, other than that, no one even noticed he was gone. That is when Jordan saw out of the corner of her eyes a young lady she had never seen before. Long, straight red hair with an eerie orange tint. And eyes the shade of the Boston Sky after a summers rain, bright indigo.
"Did you know Woody?" Jordan asked, curiosity getting the best of her as they waited for the Hearst to arrive.
"Yeah... He's... he was my ex fiancée" Jordan was taken back, she had known he had a girlfriend in Kewaunee, but fiancée?
"Oh, are you Annie?" Jordan asked in a skeptical voice, a sudden pang of jealously running threw her, she scolded herself, he was dead for Christ sakes.
Meeting the one Woody left Wisconsin for made Jordan cringe, it made her realize how lucky she was at being able to have Woody as her friend.
Then she saw it, like it came out of the ashes of a long and painful war. The long line of sparkling red and blue lights from the squad cars and ambulances, fire trucks and motorcycles.
Coming threw the fog came the coffin, its mahogany lacquered finish covered with a flag. The sound of Bagpipes filled Jordan's senses. As she watched the flag being folded, there white gloves starched and unused. Then the crack of the rifles came one after another, each startling Jordan more than the other one. Each reminded her of what happened, all the blood and his promise
He said he always be here...Always.
Everyone held a blood red rose, ready to set on his casket as they left. Even after the music of the bagpipes and the crack of the rifles had disappeared, she lingered, her and Mac, with their crimson roses, as people began to leave, file out. To them he was already forgotten, soon, his name would be a foggy memory, and one day, he would be a name carved on a gravestone, nothing more.
Mac was talking to Woody, in a low tone, her head bobbing up and down as she chatted to him, clutching the flag to her chest preciously. And when she was done, set her rose gently on the top where the others had set theirs. Jordan turned to see Angela standing far off in the distance, her frame blurred by the thick snowflakes that fell profusely from the air. Jordan nodded her head once, gravely, Angela returned the nodded and disappeared in the fog.
Mac looked back to Jordan and smiled. "No regrets." She said, and walked back towards the cars. Leaving Jordan alone with the one she had learned to love, and lost.
Jordan came up and stood, she touched the cold surface of the coffin, knowing what was left inside that box was her life, the thing that made her forget that the past held pain that was unbearable, intolerable, but the future was filled with hope and promise, and that was worth living for. Running her hands down the coffin. Long after those bagpipes had ceased there music, long after life had lost its luster, long after she was buried she would remember him as the one she loved, and there would never be another.
slowly she set her flower on the coffin, and read her own eulogy, the words stinging her ears as the snowflakes tangled in her raven hair.
"Courage is not the absence of fear, but the presence of fear and moving beyond it." She looked at the coffin longingly, a lone tear falling down her snow smudged face, she wondered if he was scared in that coffin by himself, if he was cold or if he felt any pain. She remembered his last words, how terrified he sounded.
"Hold my hand Jo... I don't want to be alone."
She smiled sadly, feeling as if a eternity of guilt being lifted from her shoulders, she would survive, all she needed was a little guidance.
"You were never alone Woody..." With one more look behind her, she trudged threw the snow, her feet leaving deep gashes in the pristine blanket of snow, disappearing in the thick silver fog that seemed to swallow her hole.
Fin