Disclaimer- If we owned them you'd know it from the sound of maniacal laughter as we contemplated evil plot twists.
Author's Note- Thank you to everyone who's reviewed so far. And yeah Jules, it's fluff with a hint of angst later, but don't worry, garretelliot is not allowing the Goddess to do the angst fest. We'll be trading point of view between Garret and Jordan for much of this fic, but wherever possible we will use a header to tell you whose head we're in. A virtual quarter to the person who can guess who wrote which POV.
Garret's POV
This is the only way to enjoy this song. A woman in your arms; moving gently to the soft, sweet remembrance of love and why it's the driving force in life. How many fights for love have I lost in my life? And yet I'm always willing to try again. Maggie, Lily, Rene. I cared about each of them, wanted something real, something permanent. I still believe that somewhere out there is someone for everyone. Jordan believed that Woody was that someone for her. I'm not so sure that's no longer true. Given time, I think the kid will come around, if she wants him back.
How could any man turn his back on a woman like her and walk away without a backward glance? She's a woman worth fighting for and I'm glad to have a friend who understands me as well as she does. We've known each other for so long; we can finish each others sentences and communicate with just a look. Jordan can make my day with a smile or ruin it just as easily. It's good to have a friend that you know will always have your back.
How many times have we done this sort of thing, one of us broken, bleeding from every pore and the other there to lean on? Binding each others broken hearts and pouring commiserative drinks until the pain begins to fade? Too many times to count, although it's usually Jordan propping me up. She never really gave her heart to anyone, opening up to Woody was a huge leap of faith for her; I just hope I can be enough to catch her on the way down.
Please God don't let her run again, I don't think she'd come back this time. Max is gone and Woody's pushed her away. There's not much to hold her in Boston now. If she ran it would kill me, I need her in my life. Jordan understands me better than anyone I've ever known. She knows there are days when I wonder why I bother to get up. Those are the days she usually shows up with a bottle and pesters me until I can't help but smile. She brings out the fun, silly side of me like no one else can.
She is also the only person in the world who knows my secret love of British comedy. How many nights has she watched The Young Ones or Monty Python with me. Jordan is probably the only person on the planet who knows that I know all the words to the Lumber Jack Song.
She knows how much it had cost me to let Maggie walk away. I remember how furious she was when I lost my head over my ex-wife; let her back into my life and hurt Lily. She threatened one night to go over and deck Maggie for dumping me again until I told her that this time was mutual. Although secretly there was a part of me that wanted her to; I guess it wasn't that mutual after all. I just bowed to the inevitable.
I should have known Maggie and I weren't going to last from the day I asked her to marry me. She had a funny look in her eye, as if she was saying yes only because she felt obligated to and I suppose that she had felt that way. And Rene and I, there was just as much mutual dislike fueling that relationship as there was lust. The only thing that relationship proved was that angry sex is indeed some of the best sex. I cared for her, but I had known from the start that she didn't want to have to fight for our relationship.
How many times did one of us call the other late at night while Jordan was in LA? Phone calls that spanned hours, the conversations that would usually be five minutes when she was here, because there was so much we could say without speaking. How many times did one of us call the other early in the morning to whine, to complain, or just to hear a friendly voice on the phone? I remember calls where she would simply tell me to turn on the TV and the two of us would sit there, running up a phone bill, watching the same show and talking during the commercial breaks.
There were so many calls that Maggie threatened to name her as co respondent in the divorce. That's the only reason I stopped fighting, I didn't want Jordan dragged through the mud. It was bad enough that I was going through that hell; there was no need to drag her through it as well. I had wanted to make things work; I wanted things to come out right between us. I had loved Maggie. That was my problem, I fell in love too easily and wanted to make everything work, I wanted every relationship I had to last a lifetime.
But I knew that Jordan would put up with being dragged through all of it if I hadn't conceded, right there by my side, as always. Fighting for me in a way I've never seen her do for anyone else. Sure she fights for other friends, but not with quite the same ferocity as she fights for me, or with me. Rene said once that the two of us fought like an old married couple and I suppose we do. I love to fight with Jordan; I know she can take it or give it.
We rib each other with a careless ease born of many years of practice. From the first day we've exchanged that same sarcastic banter, the kind of comments that have those that don't know us staring in disbelief, while those who know us only grin as a second after we trade cutting remarks we're walking down the hall arm in arm, usually with one of us trying to shove the other one off to the side for whatever sarcastic comment had just been added.
I wish I could find someone like her, but then again there's no one else quite like Jordan. She teasingly calls me her bestest girlfriend and while I pretend to get ticked off about it, I'm flattered. I like knowing that she thinks of me as her best friend. I hadn't let on just how much it had hurt to hear her call Woody the only person she could trust when she had awakened to find Malden dead.
There was something comforting in knowing that I was the one that she had turned to every other time, the one that she had turned to now. I look down to see her with a look of serious concentration on her face, and I smile, wondering what exactly she was thinking about. Knowing her, it's a case that's gotten under her skin.
I know it's not Woody, I've seen her when she's been thinking about the boy, there's a look of sad regret, wondering where she went wrong. I know exactly what she feels; I had felt the same thing when Maggie had told me she wanted out. The song ends and we slowly split apart, her arms leaving a cold, empty spot as they dislodge from around my neck.
We head back to the bar to finish our drinks. She looks better tonight than I've seen her in the past few weeks; she looks as if she might possibly be starting to mend her broken heart. I just hope I can be what she needs to help her pull through this mess in one piece.