Title: Simplicity
Summary: Sequel to "Brokendown Palace" Its been almost five years but the morgue has not gotten over the death of one of its own. And a yearly tradition may bring out all the secrets they had held in for so long. And the secrets of a fallen hero who died protecting the woman he loved.
Mackenzie Logan-Cavanaugh walked down the street slowly, her hair was ebony her eyes chilling blue. The streets seemed different every time she walked through them. The air was chilly, but the day was a sparkling blue. She skipped down the street, avoiding the cracks in the sidewalks and the people that passed her by.
It had been five years but she always remembered the look on her Aunts face when they heard the gunshot from the car. The scream still echoed in the back of her mind. It was a chilling remembrance but it kept her alive.
The morgue had changed, things always changed when a place looses someone like the way the morgue had lost Woody. She had barely known him yet she held a lasting memory and a love of him. She passed by the people she had know for what it seemed a lifetime. Seeing Nigel she smiled and snuck up to him quietly as he typed away on his computer.
"Hi Uncle Nige!" she screeched happily, wrapping her arms around his neck.
"Why hello Mite." He said jollily pinching her cheek. "How was school." She rolled her eyes and flopped down into a chair next to him.
"Boring." She sighed, "I got an A on my English paper though, see." She held it out for him to inspect.
"Very nice." He commented "Simplicity." He said pointing to the title of the neatly typed essay.
"Its about Uncle Woody." She said quietly watching the expression on his face fall. "Did Jordan read it?" he asked, her face fell to the ground, she exsamined her toe.
"No…. she still misses him… I do too."
"We all do Mite, but life goes on… he loved you, he loved us all." She nodded and looked up at him with a wistful expression.
"I can't wait till this weekend." She said, he smiled and ruffled her hair good-naturedly.
"Neither can your aunt Angela…. She's been spending hours at a time picking out what she's going to wear to the cape… Matt's excited too, since it's the first time his able to go." Matt was Nigel and Angela's son, he had the dark hair of his father and the stouter frame of his mother.
Jordan walked in, her eyes wringed with dark circles. The Cape, a tradition since Woody had been shot and killed, the weekend of his birthday the morgue and Cal, his brother, his wife Shelby there daughter would all go out to a house that Jordan's father owned on the cape, go out and celebrate all that he was, and would never be.
"Hey, how was school?" she asked instinctively. Jordan leaned down and hugged the small girl she had adopted when Woody died.
"Okay, could have been better, could have been worse." Woody's death had done something to Jordan, she was quieter, softer, something in her stilled, she stopped searching, just existed. She had a better office, better pay, and had moved into a townhouse. But the sad fact was since Woody was killed, she had stopped living, the only time when she ever seemed happy was when Mac was around, and for a moment she could pretend it was her and Woody's child she was raising, and in a way it was. Mac was Woody's equal in a way, they were always doing something together, having a water balloon fight in the morgue break room, Garrett almost killed him for that one. She smiled in remembrance. Once she had been working late on a case and when she walked into her office there was Woody sitting on the floor, Mac on the couch above him, putting his hair in multiple pink and purple rubber bands.
"What the hell?" she said as laughter rose in her throat.
"Mac wanted to do my hair." He explained as Mac dumped a small vile of glitter on his head. "Hey… What did I say no glitter… do you know what the guys are gonna do to me?" he asked, tweaking her nose affectionately.
Mac looked at Jordan with wide, curious eyes, "Aunt Jo? You okay?" she asked softly.
"Yeah, yeah babe I'm fine." She whispered on the verge of tears. Mac was twelve, could she know now? Was she ready? Jordan had to wonder if she could ever really know the truth to that night.