"You know eventually we'll have to do something together that doesn't involve eating David.." Jordan laughed lightly as they strolled along a sidewalk sale one Saturday each eating a hot dog.
"Where would the fun in that be? I mean, I like to eat...you like to PRETEND you like to eat.." He said waving a hand over her fit body. "I mean what do you do? Run ten miles a day?" David said shaking his head as the athlete...and man... in him couldn't' help noticing her physique.
Jordan just rolled her eyes in that self conscious way she always did and shrugged. "Nah, not really...well not anymore so much since Wood got hurt.." she sighed. "He was a big time runner before all this.." she said waving a hand around casually and wiped some relish off of her lip gently.
"We ran together mornings...and before you say it Sigmund Freud, it WAS NOT to relieve all of the sexual tension we had building up inside of us..." she said and smirked. "We did THAT by fighting..."
"Ahhh...so you're THAT type are you? Is that why we get along so well then? No emotions bubbling right there at the surface needing to be set free in any way they can?" David asked with a gentle smile and raised a hand when Jordan looked apologetic.
"Please, it's okay, there is no written law that a man and woman can't be friends without being anything more..." he said nodding and nudged her elbow with his own. "But it also isn't written in stone that friends can't become more as I'm sure you know." he sighed and thought of the man who now had a name and a face for him to put to the almost-relationship he and Jordan always ended up talking about at some point during their outings together.
"Woody's like a...a..." she started and stopped.
"Don't you even say the 'he's like a brother' line to me...I ain't biting..." David laughed back. "You know that's a bunch of bull and if you're wanting to be with this guy it's obviously not in a brotherly kinda way." he explained
Jordan just sighed. "It's too late...I've hurt him too badly already and I just don't think there's any recovering from this one..." she retorted with quietly and sipped her can of Diet Pepsi.
"Let me let you in on a secret," David said finding an open park bench. "Men are just big babies."
"Tell me something I don't already know." Jordan laughed so hard soda dribbled down her chin. David reached out with his napkin to wipe it up.
"It's true. We whine, we complain, we carry on...all so that some woman will feel sorry for us and mother us."
"Oh, "Jordan added sarcastically. "So Woody's rejection is his way of telling me he needs me?"
"In a round about way ...yes. In my line of work I've met people who use these type life setbacks as diving boards into new more complete lives...while a handful others use them as excuses to shy away from the outside world."
"That second group sounds like Wood." Jordan replied tracing her finger around the rim of her soda can.
"On the contrary, he's crying out for you Jordan. He's crying out for someone to hold his hand and get him through this."
"You sound awful confident for guy who's never met him...but then again you're the shrink..."
David knew he should feel guilty for leading Jordan on...but his guilt was nothing compared to the big picture. David cared about Jordan. It was hard not to feel for her. If he had met her first, things might be different...but he didn't. Woody did. Even though he was trained not to, David cared about Woody...even though caring for the battered cop was difficult at times. David could tell that, if he didn't feel like his life was irrevocably tied to his legs, Woody might be a nice guy.
He had to be to have somebody like Jordan care for him like she did and as his physical therapist he was more concerned about Woody focusing on getting well again. Not just for the shear fact of functioning...whichWoody has consigned himself to...but a strength to live again.
"So, you have decided to just keep that sexual tension at bay by letting him argue with you? " David segwayed.
Jordan looked at him oddly. David just grinned and wadded up his hotdog wrapper, tossing it into a nearby waste basket. "I can think of better ways to spend your nights Jordan."
With that he got up and walked away.
Jordan sat there walking people milling around she noticed a couple pass a booth a few yards away. The man was in a wheelchair. She could see them fussing over a decidedly frilly set of curtains on one table. After a second, the woman shrugged, setting the drapes down and turned away. She didn't make it more than three steps before he had rolled up behind her knocking her off her feet and into his lap.
They laughed and together rolled back to the table where Jordan could tellhe begrudingly, but happily, held out a twenty for the drapes. Jordan couldn't help but stare. In fact, she stared to the point where the couple noticed. When they whispered something to each other she looked away tossing her luke warm soda in the trash. By the timeshe looked back, the couple had moved on. The clock on one of the building facades told her it was time to go. She needed to be at Logan in less than an hour.
When Jordan arrived at Woody's room that night she was told he wasn't there. He was down swimming in the therapy pool.
"Hey, look at you.." Jordan smiled as she entered the muggy, chlorine smelling indoor pool room and her voice echoed off of the walls. Woody and an orderly were the only ones in the room besides herself.
"Yeah...I'm not crippled in here...I almost feel like my old self again." Woody said offering her a weak smile and a wink. Jordan decided she'd take it.
"I bet it feels good to be in real water again after all the sponge baths." She said ignoring his 'my old self' comment.
Woody grinned wickedly as he paddled over to her gently, the orderly keeping a watchful eye on him from the side of the pool. "Now THEY'D be more bearable if it was you giving them to me." he teased for the first time in a while. Jordan found it refreshing.
She slipped off her shoes and sat down with her feet and calves in the water as Woody grabbed onto the side of the pool beside her and she reached a tentative hand out to smooth back his hair, smiling gently when he didn't pull away.
"Dream on farmboy.." she whispered softly and touched his cheek before returning her hand to steady herself on the side of the pool.
"So how'd therapy go? Nurse Jeannie said you can feel to your thighs...that's great Woody. Honestly." she nodded.
"Yeah well...I can use the bathroom ALL by myself now Ma.." he said with mock enthusiasm and sighed when she looked at him disapprovingly. He lay one hand on top of hers and smiled, looking at his large hand covering her smaller one and was about to chance bringing up 'them' when the door to the pool opened again and his brother, Cal, slipped quietly in, his head bowed slightly and he shifted from foot to foot nervously.
"Hey.." Cal said nodding to both of them and waiting to be invited further, but not really expecting it.
Woody looked from Jordan to Cal and back again.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
"I came to see how you are doin'," Cal said shifting from foot to foot just inside the door looking directly at Jordan.
"I'm doing great," Woody bit out sarcastically. He didn't miss the fact the reason cal was there was sitting on the side of the pool nest to him. He took his hand away. "Can't you tell...?" he asked motioning to the hoist and wheel chair that sit next to it.
Cal couldn't bring himself to look at the chair. "The nurse up front said you got some feeling back...that's great!"
Woody didn't respond. Instead he shuffled himself over the hoist and let the orderly secure him in. When he was lifted out of the water. Both Jordan and Cal got a good look at the damage the bullet had done to him. The once robust man that once bragged to Jordan that she could do her laundry on his abs, had not only lost weight, but that trim torso he had was bloated and discolored by the long angry red scar that ran from one side to the other. Cal's gasp was the only one that was audible. Jordan wasn't sure. Her ears where ringing to loud.
Woody never dropped his gaze from Cal's face as the orderly wrapped a towel around his legs and shoulders. "Go home Calvin."
Cal suddenly felt a slight panic at the ragged scar on his brother's body. Woody already looked so much like their father and he hated to admit it but part of the reason that he hadn't come earlier to visit was that he couldn't live through seeing another person he loved lying in a hospital bed with a gunshot wound.
"I...I'm sorry Wood...I just...I just wanted to see how you were doing...I'm...I'm sorry..." he stammered finally casting a glance at Woody's limp legs as he clumsily backed out of the room.
When Jordan turned her eyes disapprovingly back to Woody he stared up at her innocently.
"What? I wanted to get out of the pool...I'm sorry if YOU and my brother are having a hard time seeing what I look like now.." he bit back. "And now maybe you understand why I saved you the trouble of having to build a relationship based on pity with me Jordan." he said with a cold detachment that scared her.
"Woody I..." Jordan started but he cut her off.
"It's okay, I told you, I don't expect you to want to deal with this, you can leave now." he said with the dismissive tone of a school principal having given his last lecture to a problem student.
"But I thought we were..." She stopped herself this time and leaned down to kiss his cheek unexpectedly. "I'm not going anywhere Woody.." she promised in a whisper and turned to follow Cal out the door. She hoped she could catch him in the hallway.
Jordan caught Cal signing out at the front desk. "This was a big mistake Jordan."
"No it's not," Jordan implored. "He needs you more then ever now. He's lost and scared...and he's forgotten how to feel."
"That's evident Doc," Cal snorted finishing his signature with a decidedly final air.
Jordan reached for his arm. "I asked you to come because I can't do this alone Cal. Your brother is in a very dangerous place right now. He's given up on life. I've tried to talk him out of it...his friends have and we've all struck out. Woody for all his obvious emotions is a hard man to reach when he shuts himself off. You're the only person that can break that wall down. He claims different but you're the only person that can get inside."
"Don't sell yourself short Jordan," he said softly. "He loves you more than anything. I know you know that."
Jordan returned that smile. "I know...but he's thinks he's protecting me from what he thinks is going to be a worthless life. Every time I pushed he pushed back...now that a few weeks have past he's just given up." Jordan thought of his cold reaction to her just a few minutes ago. She had hoped for anything shock, anger, anything. He had to know it was her that called his brother. ..but yet he sat there emotionless, dismissing her with a drawled...you can leave now. "You're the last person that can get through to him."
"He hates me Doc."
"I'm hoping he hates you enough to get up out of that chair and ring your neck..." she laughed.
Woody was settling back into his hospital bed when Cal came to stand by the door quietly and watch him.
He felt a chill up his spine as he watched his brother fidget in the bed. Even without a hospital gown on Woody looked so much like their father in his last days that he feared he might puke right there in the middle of the hallway.
Woody didn't see him in enough time to kick him out and Cal merely shook his head as Woody began his rant.
"Save it." Cal said simply and shut the door. One look around and Cal noticed they were alone. He locked the door to prevent any interruption.
"You know I always thought you were the smarter of the two of us..." he started shaking his head. "But NOW...after all this I'm not so God damned sure anymore." he said sternly and towered over his now smaller brother.
Woody stubbornly refused to look at Cal, casting his eyes instead out the window of his room indifferently.
Cal had never laid a truly angry hand on his brother. Woody had tossed him around like he was his own child growing up, never hesitating to grab his face when he was yelling at him...even as adults, but without thinking Cal reached out suddenly to grab his brother's face and make him look directly into his tearing eyes.
"She loves you Woody...and you love her...what's happened in the past, it doesn't' matter anymore...the only thing that matters is that she loves you. Hell that's reason enough to stop acting like you are. You will walk again." Cal said with conviction. "I may not have gotten more than four steps in the program but the one I was always sure of was that there are things in life that you cannot change and you have to accept that. What you two feel for each other... That won't ever change..." he said and finally allowed a few hot tears to slip over his eyelids. "And you're my big brother Woody..."he said his voice breaking."I'll always love you too." he said with a curt nod and finally released Woody's cheeks from his grip.
"You were always the romantic, weren't you Calvin?" Woody asked evenly, almost unattached. "I hate to break it to you but love doesn't conquer all. Jordan may have feelings for me...She may even love me. But how long would it last with me like this? Jordan is not some paragon. She's...real. She has hang ups and limitations...and a serious case of survivor's guilt. ...like Dad did."
Cal began to pace the room angrily. He thought about the man that was their father. His memories of him before their mother died are more like flashes of pictures in his mind but he does remember a happy man that was so full of life. After his wife died their father turned more and more to the bottle. "You're not dieing Woody."
"No, but living like this is the same thing...and having a relationship...a real relationship is out of the question. We'd both end up hating each other. I can't do that."
"So what are you going to do?"
"As soon as they release me I'm leaving. ..."
"What!"
"There is nothing for me here anymore..."
"Woah...woah...wait..." Cal said holding his hands up. "What do you MEAN you're leaving...leaving for where?" he asked continuing to pace.
"I dunno...anywhere but here..." Woody said with a shrug.
"Woody, this isn't...you can't...she'll follow you." Cal finally said folding his arms with a nod.
Woody just shook his head slowly. "Not if she doesn't know where I'm going...or that I'm going at all," Woody said and cleared his throat when his voice cracked and the first distinguishable emotion passed over his face. Desperation. "I love her," he said softly. "but not like this."
Cal sighed and looked warily at his older brother. He felt for the guy, he really did. But he had seen what losing the woman he loved had done to their father. He couldn't' let the same thing happen to his brother.
"I'm going to be staying at a motel on the South side..." Cal said handing his brother the name and room number. "Call me when you need to go home okay? I'm gonna try and find a...a part time job or something while I'm here...Just didn't do anything stupid until we've had a chance to see where everything ends up," he said nodding and started for the door.
"She has the key to my apartment..." Woody said quietly. "I could use someone to take in the mail and water my plants...I have some bills that need to be paid soon." he said casually needing a reason besides the goodness of his heart to have his brother stay in his place.
"Thanks." Cal said turning back to Woody with a brief smile.
"Just don't break anything..."
Cal walked out the door and Woody lay there thinking. Who was he kidding? He could never leave Boston. He may tell himself there is nothing for him there...but it was all he really had. He asked himself how did everything get so out of control. For the first time in a long time he let that little voice in the back of his head be heard...
"You just need to pull your proud, dumb, big eared head outta the sand..."
"Are my ears that big?" he asked to the empty room.
Long chapter...Thanks for hanging on with this. Promise it starts moving faster after this. Don't worry about "David". He came about when we knew we wanted to bring in an outsider to deal with a pigheaded Woody and be a sounding board for Jordan. So we decided why not make him Jordan's blind date. Anybody else would have bitch slapped Woody by this point...even Sydney...and especially THE TWO OF US!
