Disclaimer: I don't own Crossing Jordan. Tailwind Productions and Tim Kring own them all.

Each year that I taught middle school (now more years ago than I want to remember), I would read the Charles Dickens short story A Christmas Carol to my kids in the hope that they would realize how thankful they should be to have what they did have and not to get so caught up in trying to gain material goods that they forgot about the value of the eternal. Did it work? Not then. But later, I had some of those kids come back to me and tell me how my reading of that short story was one of their Christmas highlights…and they did remember the lesson it taught. Those words did my teacher's heart good. And brought some tears to my eyes. Lessons like that are so much important than remembering how to diagram compound-complex sentences or recalling the three laws of thermodynamics.

So….we've tried angst….and now I'm trying humor to get over Embraceable You. Like JORDY, that episode is my Pandora's Box. Yeah, it's gonna take me a while to get over it.

So here's my Crossing Jordan version of A Christmas Carol…only it's not Christmas, but a day after Jordan refused Woody's friendship ring.

And by the way, I don't own A Christmas Carol, either. Darn. All the good plots are taken…..


Chapter One

The Ghost of Devan McGuire

It had been a long day. It was going to be an even longer evening. And the year ahead seemed to stretch out for eternity.

Jordan drove home…back to her Pearle Street apartment in a deep funk….she was depressed, really. Feeling more cynical than usual. For a couple of reasons. First of all today was her birthday. Not a day she greeted with great enthusiasm any longer. After all, there were only so many years you could put candles on your cake with great enthusiasm. Now she only heard the tick-tock of her biological clock beginning to slow down.

The second reason she was feeling the blues was Woody's fault. Or at least she was trying her best to blame him. He had tried to give her a ring. No, not an engagement ring…a friendship ring. But it held diamonds, either way you looked at it. And diamonds meant commitment.

And commitment was something she couldn't commit to. Commitment meant loving someone…and loving someone meant you had to risk being hurt by that person. And that was a risk that until lately, she wasn't willing to take.

She loved him. She admitted that. At least to herself. And she tried to tell him that tonight….but he wouldn't let her. When he had first given her the ring, she refused it flat-out. Then….later as the day wore on and she talked with Joey, who told her what it was like being in love with your best friend, she changed her mind. WhenWoody came to her office for the last time that day, he told her he was through chasing her….he gave up. His ego couldn't take it anymore. Then walked out before she could tell him that she did love him and wanted to wear the ring, please?

So Jordan was trying her dead-level best to pin the second reason for her depressed state of mind on Woodrow Wilson Hoyt. Damn him. He played the friend card. "Maybe we can still be friends," he had said. That was her line thank-you-very-much.

Only now….she had taught him too well how to play the game. Somewhere along the way, the tables had turned on her…now that she was willing and ready to say those three words she never thought she would utter (and at least mean them) and he had given up.

Wearily Jordan rode the elevator up to her third floor apartment and let herself in. She was too tired to go any further. Tossing her keys and pocketbook onto the coffee table, she made it only as far as the couch. She dropped down on the cushions and before the days events could spin around in her head again, she fell fast asleep……

Only to be waken by a perky, cheerleader-y voice calling her name…."Jordan….Jordan…"

"No…it can't be….you died in an airplane crash months ago…you're an official crispy critter even if we didn't find anything left of you to bury.."

"'Fraid so, Jordan…I'm ba-a-a-a-a-ck." The voice drawled out the last word like the scene from Poltergeist.

"Oh, God…it's you."

And indeed it was. The perky, blonde ME had returned…although not in human form. There was definitely less of Devan than there had been before…even less of her shapely ass. "Yep, it's me alright," she said, perching herself on the arm of the chair across from Jordan.

"What did I do that was so awful to deserve this?" Jordan said, sitting up and holding her head. "I couldn't stand you when you were alive .. . so you come back to haunt me when you're dead?"

"Not haunt. Help."

"How could you possibly help me?" Jordan asked, standing and going over to ghost of Devan. "There's not a lot of you left to help anyone."

"I know what happened tonight….how you turned Woody down and then how he cut you off."

"And I bet you loved it.

Devan tilted her head and looked at Jordan closely. "No…actually I thought you were kind of dumb not to take the ring and run the first time it was offered. I mean you love him…he loves you, or at least he tries to when you let him. And it's a great ring. Woody has excellent taste in jewelry even if I question his taste in women."

Jordan snorted and looked through Devan. Devan ignored her. "So I'm here to help you out, Jordan. Show you the way to true love and happiness…if you're brave enough to take the path."

"If I'm brave enough?"

"Tonight, you'll be visited by three ghosts…."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute. This has been done before…Bill Murray, Behind the Music … .even the Muppets have done this Christmas Carol gig. And besides….it's not even Christmas…you are so blonde."

"You will be visited by three ghosts," Devan continued in a firmer voice. "And it's up to you if you receive their messages and change your life."

"Change my life? But I was just about to tell Woody I loved him when he jumped the boat and ran from me."

"And if you admitted your true feelings earlier, you'd be curled up in your apartment with him, with a gorgeous diamond on your finger and not sitting here chatting to a ghost…."

Jordan sat back down on the couch. "And I have no choice in the matter?"

"None."

"And this will all be done by tomorrow morning, if I remember the Dickens' story correctly.."

"Yeah."

"Good. I have early morning shift tomorrow."

"Then expect the first ghost at midnight…" Devan began to float away through Jordan's window.

"Wait a minute…..Dev…." she called out.

Devan turned back and looked at Jordan. "What?"

"In the other stories, these were Christmas ghosts…what are they in mine?"

"Birthday Spirits….."