A Sorta Fairytale

Disclaimer: If I said I owned them, would you believe me?

Spoilers: Jump Push Fall

"I thought I told you to leave, Jordan."

Coming from his immobile, weak body, Woody's words seemed both empty and meaningless. Momentarily, she asked herself why it was that she returned to this hospital room, after being curtly refuted and angrily resented. Looking into the dull grey eyes that were once a piercing crystalline, she seemed to remember.

She wanted to say something along the lines of, I don't give up that easily, Farm Boy; a statement as filled with passion as it was with bravado. But this wasn't an emotional fairytale: no, this wasn't one of those stories where she would grandly profess her love and he would grandly accept. This was reality; a vast, emotionally barren wasteland; and love was more difficult to realize than to profess.

"Go back to sleep. I'm not going to disturb you."

From the tangled mass of wires and tubes, she could discern an uncomfortable shift and what resembled a sardonic snort.

"Tell me what you wanted to say, Jordan. I haven't slept in five years; five minutes won't hurt."

"I don't want to say anything," she said quietly as she adjusted her chair. "I just want to be here."

"Wait, Jordan Cavanaugh didn't come with a speech prepared?"

She remained silent in return, his derisive reply ringing raucously in her ears. The silence was cutting, pierced with serrated, jagged edges, but she couldn't find the words to break it.

"I don't know what to say to you, Woody."

"Am I the first to possess the honor of leaving Jordan Cavanaugh speechless?"

"Woody…" she began in a louder, angrier tone before returning to her slow, deliberate manner of speaking. "Please stop."

"Why, Jordan?" His intonation raised a few pitches, and he spoke ardently. Jordan couldn't help but marvel at what was unfolding before her: Woody was the passionate one, and she was the voice of reason. "I want to know why it is that you're here, why you're making this…mockery of me."

"I'm not making a mockery out of you, Woody," she responded gently. "Why would you think that?"

"Because I'm a cripple, Jordan! I'm sorry, but I can't save you anymore: I can't be your knight in shining armor because I'm going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life!"

"I don't want that," she said as she maintained her quiet, even tone. "This isn't about me—"

"That's bullshit, Jordan, and you know it! Everything's been about you and your troubled past, and how you're terrified of committing because everyone's always hurt you, and left you, and…and… you have always been the victim!"

She pondered walking out the door, without a word: running somewhere…anywhere without a grand, emotional scene of pleas, arguments, and apologies. For some reason, something kept her sitting in that chair: if she were a religious woman, it would be an act of God. But she wasn't, and for a moment, Jordan Cavanaugh believed that it might have been love that kept her sitting, silently, by his bedside.

"The last time I was in a hospital," she began slowly, her hands resting on her knees as she inched forward, "was when my cousin died. That was the only time that I sat in a position like this: helpless, at the bedside, of someone I loved. This was twenty-five years ago, and I swore that I would never…never come back here unless it was me in that bed, hooked up to those machines, fighting for my life."

"Should I feel honored that you came back here for me, Jordan? Is that what you want me to feel? Appreciative? Grateful?"

"I came back here because I love you, Woody. I thought that you, of all people, would understand what that means; for me to still be sitting here, after this verbal abuse, and maintain the fact that I want to be with you, and that I'm not going to run away and leave this behind…I'm doing this for you, Woody!"

"And after four years of hide and seek," he began, slightly calmer but no less angry, "you expect me to believe you because of some grandiose speech? Because of this pretentious profession of your undying love?

"You know, Jordan, I'm not sure if you're in love with me or proving me wrong; maintaining your own status as an enigma, this puzzle that everyone wants to figure out but no one can solve. You love a good challenge, and I think getting a hard ass cop turned cripple to love you might just be the crowning glory."

Instead of waiting to let his words sink in, she immediately scooted closer to his bed and spoke, somewhere between composure and desperation. "If this was about my pride, do you honestly think I'd still be here?"

"I don't know anymore, Jordan. I don't think I know anything anymore."

"This isn't about me, Woody, is it? This is about your parents, how they left you with your younger brother to take care of, and how he left you too." She put her hand on his arm as she edged closer to his side. "This is about Annie, how you loved each other, but love just wasn't enough? This is about everyone, Woody, not just me."

His eyes were transfixed by nothingness, staring motionlessly in the opposite direction; but Jordan could see a bed of tears forming in his peripheral vision.

"You've helped everyone so you wouldn't think about your own pain. Let me help you, Woody."

"It's not that easy, Jordan!" He turned to face her, the dull grey in his eyes now turning to a cloudy blue. "I can't trust you, I can't trust anyone."

"But you can try!"

"What if that's not enough? What would you do then?"

"I don't know—"

"Exactly." He said, a single tear making a silent path down to his lip. "No one ever thinks about what happens when it's just not good enough, when I'm just not good enough. No one ever has a back up plan."

"I don't know if you're good enough, Woody. Hell, I don't know if I'm good enough. But you want to believe me when I say that I want to know: that I would give anything to know that we could bicker and we could fight, but at the end of the day, we could be part of something much bigger than either of us could ever know."

He looked into her desperate, pleading eyes and brushed her cheek with his forefinger.

"I think it would be harder for me not to love you," he said quietly.

They sat together in a terse, vacant silence until he spoke again. "Do you think this will work?"

"Honestly, Woody… I've never been so scared in my entire life."

"Me too." He gripped her hand tighter, as if they were both on this wild rollercoaster ride, and they were about to reach the big drop: as if everything else had merely been preparation for this one moment. They clung to each other like safety belts: critical to one another's survival. Without it; without each other; they would fall forever.

"Me too."

Fin.