A/N surely you don't think that I think Woody THAT cut and dry? I mean he's a very shallowly written character (Jerry O'Connell needs to pick roles with depth, seriously, he's got talent, but he plays all these shallow roles) but that doesn't mean he's completely a cardboard cutout. So here's this, it's the end of this saga (unless another plot bunny sics itself on me). Thanks to all of you who have read and reviewed and enjoyed it!
She ignored the pouring rain as she walked down the familiar city streets, not stopping, just walking until she reached where she wanted to go, to find the one person she was looking for to not be home. Instead she sat in front of his house waiting for him, ignoring the water that was soaking her to the bone, it didn't matter to her, she was beyond caring about it.
She saw the familiar large black SUV pull up and she could see his concerned look from the second he pulled in. "Jordan, what the hell are you doing here? You're soaked." He said, opening the door, and ushering her inside to the kitchen, getting her onto tile so that she wouldn't soak the carpeting. "I'll go get you something to change into, you must be freezing."
She shrugged, she felt almost numb again, after she finally progressed to feeling again, again she was numb. The first five minutes had been the best feeling in the world, but after she realized what exactly had happened and realized that he had just put up a front, acted as if it didn't matter, and now she was here, with the man that started it all.
No, it wasn't right to blame him, it wasn't fault that she couldn't figure out what she wanted, he had merely provided an alternative, he had been the one catalyst that made her realize that maybe there was more to life than what she had, and what she could have. He merely loved her, but then again, so did Woody. Too much love for her to put up with.
He returned a minute later with a sweat suit for her, which she quickly changed into, not caring that he was there, he had seen her naked before and this time it was out of necessity, not anything else, she was freezing, and it felt good to be out of wet clothes. He put up a kettle of water and waited for it to give it's shrill whistle before pouring it out into two glasses and gave her a glass of hot tea. "Thanks." She said, sipping it slowly, warming up.
"What possessed you to come out here in the rain and just sit there, the garage is open you know." She shrugged.
"It felt good when I was out there." He rolled his eyes.
"You were drenched, how long where you out there?" She thought for a second.
"Only a few minutes, but I walked from the hospital. I went to see Woody." He looked at her with feigned indifference. She knew that as much as he acted like he didn't care what she decided on in the end, that he did, and that was what was making things so utterly difficult for her, the fact that she knew that no matter what she'd be breaking one of their hearts, that she couldn't keep both of them in limbo, and she couldn't go and pick a third person, as much as she was tempted to.
"How's he doing?" He asked, and sh re could tell that the man was concerned, the two were friends, which was another ting that made this the absollute worst decision of her life. Picking one over the other would mean breaking their friendship, breaking on of their hearts, and making the one who was left utterly miserable. She only had one ace in her sleeve and that was she knew how Garret was going to take it.
Drink, act like things were perfectly OK, drink some more, put up a grand show about everything being perfect and nothing ever going wrong, throw himself headfirst into work, whatever it is that he would do if Slokum became a permanent addition to the mourge staff, and drink until he realized that it was a futile effort and ease up on the drinking but remain permanently implanted into his work without a thought of a social life. It was what he did after Maggie, it was what he did after every other failed relationship that he had had, the only difference she noticed was the amount of scotch that he imbibed before realizing it was useless.
She had no clue what Woody was going to do if she told him that he was the one she didn't want. She had seen a hint of it already, he acted like he was OK, but she could tell after thinking about it, rolling it back and forth in her mind that he wasn't. He had acted like it, made a grand show of them being still cool, but it was him hiding the pain that she knew he must have felt. What was it with men and being afraid of showing their emotions?
Woody had acted like it didn't matter when she proved him right, that every time she said those three little words there was no emotion behind them, at least not the emotion he wanted there to be behind them, and she knew that must have been a blow to him, the same way his telling her to get out had been a blow to her. But he had admitted that what he wanted was the one thing she didn't. He wanted the little house in suburbia with a backyard and a little fence and a messy garage filled with everything under the sun.
The very house she was in at the moment. She almost laughed at the sheer irony of it. The one thing she wanted least was the one place she had turned to. But Garret, he wouldn't care what she did, he didn't want anything out of the relationship except her love, she could tell that, he didn't want a serious commitment, he didn't care what she did to prove that she cared for him, he would be perfectly content to have her around him as a friend if nothing else.
Woody, well, he wanted the American dream and they both knew that. They both knew that he was still in many ways the farm boy he had been when he first moved to Boston and that there were some things that he just couldn't change. He had acted OK when she had told him that that was the reason that she didn't want him, but she could see it in his eyes, the unspoken words, the look that told her that he would change for her.
He wanted to be the one to make her happy, but so did Garret. But she'd just be a weight for either of them, no matter what she did. She'd weigh them down. It was a matter of who would be hurt less. And the winner in that one was the man who was sitting across the small kitchen table from her, silently staring into his mug, waiting for her to sort out her own emotions and thoughts.
He had already done the whole suburban thing, he had already done the white picket fence and the happy marriage and the kids, he was past all that, Woody was still in his prime and she didn't want to have him miss all that, she didn't want him to go through life with the regret that he never had that little house with the backyard and the chance to coach little league. But she didn't want to hurt him either. The sound of her name brought her out of her reverie.
"What?" She asked, looking up at the man across the table from her.
"I was just wondering if you wanted something to eat." She smiled slightly.
"I'm fine thanks." She said, and they sat on the couch, her curled against him. "Garret?" She asked and he looked at her, his brown eyes soft and caring.
"Hmm?"
"I can't promise you anything." She said, and she saw the confusion cross his face. "But I like this, I really do. It's just, I-" She looked for the words. "Woody and I-well-" She had an idea of what she wanted to tell him but the words wouldn't form. "I mean, he knows that I don't love him because he's the suburban prince, but I don't want to hurt him. I care too much about him to hurt him, but it's not the love that he wants, which leaves me in the worst decision of my life." He held her close and kissed her forehead.
It was so true. Her ship lost at sea was horribly caught in irons with no way of turning towards the wind. "What do you want? All of us aside, what do YOU want? Don't care who it is you're going to hurt, what is it that you want." She thought of it. She wanted the chance at a family, she wanted the choice of having one, she wanted someone stable, she wanted someone that would love her. What she wanted, both of them could provide. That was what was making it so hard.
"I want things to turn out alright so that I don't have to choose." He smiled at her, and she leaned back into his touch. "I don't want to weigh Woody down which is all I'll do if I'm with him, he'll act like it's all OK, he'll act like he did today, but I don't think he'll ever be really happy with me. But I don't want to promise you anything either." She stared into his deep brown eyes and saw her own reflected back at her.
"Then don't. You're here now, that's what matters, isn't it? The future is the future." She grinned.
"I think the beach must have switched our personalities. You've gone from the serious one who thinks everything through before taking a risk to a live for the moment type and here I am agonizing over something trying to decide." He smiled.
"Love makes you do some strange things." There it was again, the L word, and she stiffened, but relaxed again. Love. He loved her. Woody loved her. She loved-she loved the chase, she loved the feeling of being in complete control, and now that was gone, she was no longer a carefree little girl, she was a woman, and she couldn't spend the rest of her life dancing around relationships the way she had with Woody. And now that the chase was gone, now that he had conceded, he had folded and let her take the pot, she felt strangely hollow.
"Indeed it does." She said, kissing him passionately, falling back against the cushions. She was sick of thinking about the choices she had. She was there, so was he, she wasn't going to promise him that she would be there forever, that she was always going to love him or that Woody wouldn't compromise on their dreams.
He had flat out said that the future is a long way off. She didn't know what could happen in the next hour, or next day, or next week. She could be gone or so could they, something could happen to alter what she had, right now the only thing that she had was the present and she didn't want to debate on what she had anymore. She just wanted to love and be loved, and at the moment, that was what she had, and she was content to leave it like that. Woody had a long way until he got out, maybe things would be different then, but until that day, she had someone to love her.