Disclaimer: I don't own Crossing Jordan or any of its characters.
Author's Note: I started this long before the season four finale, so for the sake of this story let's forget what happened with our chief in that episode.
Garret wandered quietly to the roof of the building.
"I thought you might be up here," he announced. His latest hire spun on her heels to face him, her long auburn hair flaring out behind her like a firework as she moved. Garret walked towards her and stopped just a few feet short of where she stood.
"Dr. Macy," she said, her teeth chattering as a cold wind threatened to push them over the ledge, "you found me." Garret nodded and found his way to roof's edge. He peered out onto his beloved city and probed his new ME when she came and stood beside him.
"So, Dr. Jackson, how's it going?" he asked.
"It's Audrey, please," she sighed, "and it's not going as well as I hoped. I've been here three days and I've already made an enemy out of almost everyone." Garret smiled and turned to her.
"No you haven't," he explained, "they're just testing you; making sure you've got what it takes to be part of our family. Give them a week our two, I'm sure they'll warm right up to you. This place will be feeling like home in no time."
"I hope so," Audrey said with a sad smile. She took a quick glance at her watch before continuing, "Speaking of home," she said, "I better get going. My husband will be wondering where I got to." Garret's eyebrows sprung up in surprise.
"You're married?" he asked.
"Quite," Audrey laughed, recognizing the surprise in his voice, "almost twenty years."
"Oh, I, uh," Garret stammered, "it's just I didn't notice your rings." Audrey reached down the front of her blouse and produced two rings on a gold chain. She pulled them away from her chest so he might get a better look.
"They tend to get in the way when I've got my hands in dead people all day long," she explained.
Garret smiled as they both turned and headed back down the stairs. When they finally reached the ninth floor, most of the lights were off and almost everyone had left for the night. Ever the gentleman, Garret offered to walk Audrey to her car. He waited at the elevator while she gathered her things. A few minutes later, as the elevator swallowed them and ferried them to the building's first floor, the pair was engulfed in an uncomfortable silence.
"What about you, Dr. Macy?" Audrey said finally. Garret fixed her with a quizzical stare.
"What about me?" he asked.
"You married?"
"Divorced," Garret admitted flatly.
"I'm sorry," Audrey said, her eyes turning to the elevator floor as its doors slid apart.
"What for?" Garret asked. Audrey thought for a moment and laughed airily through her nose.
"I'm not sure," she confessed, "isn't that what you're supposed to say when some one tells you something like that." Garret smiled at her obvious nervousness.
"I don't know," he shrugged, reaching in his pocket for his car keys. Without intending to, Audrey and Garret had parked side by side. After nodding obligatory good-nights, Garret slipped into his car and followed Audrey out of the parking lot.
x x x x x
"Audrey!" Jordan called across the conference room the following morning, "I'll trade you my 'heart attack on the bus', for your John Doe," she offered, waving a case file as the rest of their colleagues filed out of the conference room. Having overheard Jordan's proposition, Garret placed a knowing hand on Audrey's shoulder.
"Don't do it," he advised with a smile.
"Get lost Macy," Jordan playfully scolded as she approached them, "she can trade if she wants."
"They're autopsies Jordan, not baseball cards," Garret said with a look that told her to do the work assigned to her.
"She can trade if she wants," Jordan repeated, sounding very much like a six year old trading her snacks at lunchtime. With a smile still lingering on his lips Garret watched as Jordan led Audrey away and tried to convince her to make the switch. When he saw Audrey hand over her file he shook his head and made his way back to his office. Although he warned her against it, Audrey had given into Jordan's persistence the way he suspected she would. She was anxious to make friends and if making friends meant that she had to give up interesting cases for more mundane ones, then she was more than willing to do so.
But after standing with her on the roof's edge the night before and watching her from across the conference room this morning, Garret knew she could make friends without trading cases. Audrey radiated a rare kindness that Garret found himself somehow drawn to. Although he found it terribly cliché to say so, her smile could indeed light up a room. She had charmed him in her interview a few weeks earlier and although he knew shouldn't hire someone to whom he felt even the slightest attraction; she was by far the best candidate he had seen for the job. When he'd hired her that afternoon, he told himself to ignore the sparkle in her fiercely green eyes and the pang of attraction in his stomach as she shook his hand and thanked him for giving her the opportunity to work in Boston.