A/N I thank garretelliot for suggesting and beta'ing this chapter...it was her idea, I just put it to paper. And this is probably the end of it, if there's going to be more, it will be a single chapter, I have Follow Your Heart to work on!
I sat there, floored by what he had told me. The doctor stopped in, made sure that he was still alive and was only asleep and left me alone after a disapproving glare. The doc hadn't wanted me there, claimed family only, but he had relented when he had seen just how desperate I was. Just how afraid.
I'd never been that afraid before in my life. Even when I found out that Woody was shot, it hadn't affected me like this. I think part of it was walking in and being the one to find him there, sprawled out, I hadn't seen his chest move at all, and he felt so cold. I really did think the worst. I thought he had had a heart attack, something, just keeled over and died until I heard a raspy breath and saw the almost empty bottle of scotch on the table.
Being there in the ambulance with him had been the most nerve wracking time of my life. Watching them wheel Woody into surgery had gotten me to confess something I never would have confessed before. And Woody had told me to screw my pity, and, well, it hadn't occurred to me at the time that was why I had said it, but looking back on it, it could have very well been why. Fear, and the thought that he may never be who he was ever again.
I thought I loved Woody, I thought that I really did love him, but the more I thought about it the more I wondered if it was true. I wondered if I really did love him or if it was something I had said out of pity. I loved him, but at the same time, I didn't. And what Garret had just said made things all the more complicated.
I loved Garret, but he was the one that was always there for me, he was my best friend, the one that I held onto because there was no one else left as a constant in my life. He was the one that was always there for me, always championing my cause, and I had never realized why until now. He had never mentioned it before, never gave me a single hint that he wanted more than friendship.
It must have been torture for him, all the times that I would run to him, where I would curl up against him and gripe about whatever it was that day. We were always so-physical. I just assumed that he was the same type of person a very tactile, touching type, but the more I thought about it, the more those touches seemed to be that of someone who loved me but was afraid to show it.
The thought of us together that way had never crossed my mind. When we met he had Maggie, he was married, with a wife and a daughter. And then I had left, and come back. And he didn't have Maggie. But I was so busy trying to get settled back in Boston that I didn't even want to think about anything romantic so I had pushed him towards Lilly, and then Maggie had come back.
And by the time he had finished with all that, Woody had entered the picture. And the caseload had grown huge. I didn't have a chance to think of anyone romantically. So life had gone on with the two of us being just friends. And then Rene stepped in, and Woody and I started flirting with something more than what we were, and now, well, now the truth had finally come out.
I looked at the man who sat there, sound asleep. I had kissed him, simply to see if I was missing something, and there was something there that I hadn't felt with Woody. I loved Woody, I never wanted to see him die, and it had taken him nearly dying for me to realize that, but now that I had almost lost Garret as well, I realized how much he meant to my life.
And he meant so much more than Woody, he had been there for longer, we had been through more together. He had been the one to save me from myself, he didn't even know me at the time. He had been the one to take me back, put up with me, I had been through so much with him, he was the one that was always there for me no matter what, he had stood by me through thick and thin, even defended me to Walcott when it put their relationship at risk.
And he loved me. But so did Woody. And I loved both of them…the question was which one did I love more? I loved Woody like a brother, I never wanted to loose him, but yet every time we flirted with more it felt so wrong. And now with Garret in the picture, the kiss we had had been electric, one of those that made every hair on my body stand up on end. I hadn't had a kiss like that in ages.
I had never thought of him that way though. At least I could count on him not to leave me, he seemed so sincerely upset that I was scared that he would leave me. As if the last thing he wanted to do is ever hurt me or scare me. Was that why he kept reserving judgment on Woody? He had said that Woody was a good guy, but he never said much about my relationship with the detective.
I never thought that he felt something more for me though, I never thought that his love for me was that way. I always thought that I was something of a little sister to him, someone that he loved, that he doted on, and I knew I got away with anything because of him, that if anyone else tried the stunts that I had pulled that he would have fired them on the spot, but he always never seemed to mind when I did things.
The only thing he had ever cared about was when I risked my life. And it was understandable. I always thought it was just because he loved me in a platonic just-friends kind of way, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that he really did love me that way. And that it maybe wasn't such a bad thing.
The more I thought about it, the more and more it seemed like a better idea. He had been there for me through so much. He had been there to help me through finding out most of the truth about my mother, he had been there for me every time I reached the breaking point, always ready to lend a hand or a shoulder to cry on.
He loved me, and he wasn't going to shove me away the way Woody had. We were already so in tune to each other. We could finish each other's sentences, banter on and on about everything and nothing, spend an entire night in silence and still know everything that the other one was going to say.
It wouldn't be that hard to go from that to love, would it? Real love, the stuff of bad romance novels and fairy tales. We already were almost there. He loved me, he had said as much. And he was one of those guys that didn't let a relationship die without a fight, he wanted to make every relationship he was in work, he wanted to not let a relationship just fizzle out, he didn't want to let a fight end things, he wanted to keep working through the problems.
The more that I thought about it, the more appealing a relationship with him seemed, the more I wanted it. Woody had shoved me away, he couldn't complain about it, he couldn't say that he still wanted me when he left me high and dry, if he still wanted me, it was his fault, right?
I tried to convince myself of that. Because with every passing moment Garret seemed more and more appealing. He wasn't a bad looking man, he was good looking in a very Bogart sort of way, dark and deep and mysterious with how had that black widow put it? Bogart eyes. Very Marlowe. Sexy in an unconventional way. He may not have had all of his hair, but some how bald looked good on him. I had seen a few pictures of him with hair and he looked much better without hair than with.
He started stirring awake and I smiled at him. Yes, I could get used to him, it wasn't such a big stretch from friendship to a relationship was it? "Hello sleeping ugly." I teased him and he smiled.
"What time is it and can I leave yet?" I looked up at the clock. Was it already that late?
"It's two, and you won't be able to leave until tomorrow morning."
"They said twenty four hours." he complained and I grinned.
"Right, you try catching a cab at one in the morning from the hospital and get back to me." He frowned and I fought off a laugh.
"So." I started, searching for a conversation topic.
"So." He repeated, an inquisitive look in his eyes.
"I've been thinking." He chuckled.
"Someone call the Globe." I slapped his arm once for that comment.
"About what you said." That seemed to wipe the grin right off of his face.
"Look, Jordan, just forget about it-" He started and I cut him off with a kiss. He stared at me incredulously.
"I thought maybe it's worth a shot." I told him and he looked a little shocked before a grin crossed his face. "I thought that I would loose you and it made me realize that you mean so much to me." I confessed truthfully.
"You really want to try this?" He asked me and I nodded.
"Why the hell not?" He grinned and I leaned over and kissed him once more, enjoying the feeling of his lips, of the scruff of his goatee against my face. Yes, it was something I might just get used to.
