Jordan stood quickly from her seat.
"If you came here looking for a fight then I'd just turn right back around and leave Woody." She warned, standing between him and Cal.
Woody let out a mirthless laugh. "Do you even know WHO you're defending there Jordan?" Woody asked through clenched teeth.
There was a beat of silence as Cal lowered his head and Jordan raised hers higher. "He's your brother Woody." She said almost pleadingly.
Woody shook his head. "I don't have a brother anymore…" he bit back but couldn't conceal the slight crack in his voice or the shine in his eyes. "I don't have anyone." He said holding Jordan's gaze for a long moment before he turned his back on the two people he loved most in the world.
"Go Calvin…Just leave, I don't want you anymore." Woody said trying to keep his voice even before he stalked down the hallway back to autopsy.
Jordan would have stormed after him if she hadn't been so stricken by his professed lack of…anything for her and Cal.
Instead she stood there opening and closing her mouth like a fish out of water until she got her wits about her; then came the storming.
Jordan stalked down the hallway, her strides almost as long as the 6'3 man she was chasing down. With a slap of her hand to the autopsy room's swinging door Jordan blew into the room and it only took a glance Bug's way for him to get the hint that his presence wasn't needed for the time being.
Once he was gone she turned back on Woody who was trying his best to seem careless.
"You're a real asshole you know that?" She asked and didn't give him time to speak when he turned on her angrily. "If you'd get over yourself for two and a half seconds you'd realize that you just…that you just cut through to the bone on the last two people who had thick enough skin to put up with your bull shit over the past 6 months!" she snapped at him.
Woody laughed again. "Yeah well, that's nothing compared to the lifetime of bull I've heard from him or the four years of it I heard from you." He said grabbing his autopsy report. "I've got work to do." And with that he was gone, leaving Jordan in the room alone with the soft flapping of the swinging door.
"That sounded like it went well.." Cal said with a sad smile when Jordan came back into the room. He knew his brother could be a jerk, hell he even knew he deserved what Woody had said about him in there but he thought it was inexcusable to say what he had to Jordan.
Jordan put a hand on Cal's shoulder. "He didn't really mean it Cal…he's just upset and.."
She stopped when Cal raised a hand. "It's okay Jordan, you don't have to run interference for us I got myself into this hole…maybe he's right.." he said with a sigh. "I should just leave and go back to Wisconsin…you heard him he doesn't wanna see me again." He said quietly like a child being scolded.
"He doesn't mean it Cal…he's just upset, you know that…" Jordan tried to tell him but Cal shook his head again.
He thought of that night, their father turning to watch him run off and the gunshot that followed so close behind that there was no mistaking what had given the shooter the opportunity. His brother wasn't stupid. He was a damn good detective and if he saw that video and knew Cal was on it in some way then he knew what had turned their father's attention away from the robbery that night.
"It's over Jordan…it's just over." He said passing the delivery guy on his way out of her office, not feeling like he had much of an appetite.
Woody headed back to his office, not wanting to deal with anyone. Lucky for him most of the precinct had already gotten that memo sometime shortly after he came back from being on leave after he was shot. He flopped down in his chair angrily and began to page brusquely through the autopsy report but his eyes didn't read anything on the pages. His mind was consumed with the images he'd watched over and over on his laptop only a few days before.
As was becoming typical for him, Woody turned off his computer, stuffed the autopsy report under his arm and grabbed his keys before heading back to his apartment. He spent the rest of the afternoon trying to read the report while at the same time trying to ignore the disc sitting by his computer desk that had become his obsession of the past week.
It was only an hour after he got home that he finally gave in and put it back in to watch and only an hour after that that there was a soft, familiar knock at his door and he left the liquid crystal display of his laptop long enough to go for the door with the intent of telling Jordan to screw off for the second time that day.
"Go away Jordan I don't need your help." He said with little less conviction than he had earlier. He was worn out, physically and emotional from the stress his recent discovery and the old wounds it had brought to the surface.
Jordan must have sensed the crack in his emotional wall. "I'm not here to yell at you I just wanna talk Woody." She said gently and placed a hand on the door again. Tentatively Woody reached out his own hand and place it against the smooth door as well as his other hand snuck up on him and unlocked the deadbolt. He didn't bother opening it just walked back to sit in front of the computer slouched in his chair.
Jordan waited a beat before she slowly opened the door and stepped inside. Nigel had filled her in on what all exactly Woody had a hold of in that insignificant looking little jewel case.
Without a word she walked up behind him at the computer and watched the horror Woody already had memorized unfolding in that gas station 16 years ago.
'16 years.' Jordan thought. 'With the emotional turmoil it had caused it might as well have been filmed yesterday.'
Woody watched robotically as the scene unfolded. Shadows. Headlights. Tip of a hat. Guns at their sides. A turn of the head. Not even a second had time to pass on the time count. The flash of a gun. His father sliding to the floor. Dark pool of blood and a radio call.
When the screen went black Jordan rested a comforting hand on his shoulder and was surprised when Woody didn't shrug it away. But she wasn't sure if it was from a need to be touched or apathy to try anymore.
"I'm so sorry Woody." She whispered not knowing what else to say.
Woody sighed. "Why? It's not your fault he's dead….it's Cal's." he said casually and rubbed his tired eyes.
"Come on, why don't you get into bed, you're exhausted." Jordan said taking him by the arm.
"Jordan…just stop." He begged tiredly. "Just…just leave me alone I don't want your help…I don't want anyone's help.." he said slowly.
"…Yeah, well want and need are two different things farm boy.." she whispered and Woody was surprised by a rush of tears.
"Why Jordan? Why do you still want to help me? I've…I've been terrible to you…and I can't….I couldn't save my mother…and…and I couldn't save my father and I let…I raised Cal and took care of him and he's…all this time and I PITIED him." He cried as Jordan gently took him in her arms even as he fought her embrace.
"He doesn't remember our mother…he…he was just a kid when Pop was killed and now…and he…" With a heavy sigh that could only come from a little boy carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders masquerading as a confident together man, Woody slumped into Jordan's arms, giving up the fight against the world.
"I'm tired Jordan…I'm just so tired of all of it..." he cried into her shoulder and slowly, carefully, finally wrapped his arms around her waist, returning her embrace.
Jordan nodded, stroking his back and holding him tightly. "You were just a kid too Woody. It wasn't your fault…none of it…Life rarely turns out the way we want it to."
She said looking off into a past, into a childhood of her own that had gone so terribly wrong. "Sometimes, for some of us, it just turns out worse. I'd like to think we come out stronger from it but sometimes we just come out more battle weary than others." She whispered and slid one hand down to hold one of his.
"What if you've been fighting the battle your whole life?" Woody whispered and Jordan smiled sadly against his head.
"Well…then…you end up like us.." She whispered. "You wear a kind of armor to try and hide the scars. For some of us the armor is shutting everyone out, never letting anyone get close enough to see the scars through the chain mail…" She said looking at the wall across the room. "For others…the armor is nothing more than carefully constructed distractions and slight of hand. Getting the audience to look one way while you hide behind a happy-go-lucky persona and dimples that stretch a mile wide." She said with a sad smile as she rubbed his back.
"So which one am I? Chain mail or the dimples?" Woody asked softly, with a hint of a smile in his voice.
Jordan smiled sadly and lifted his chin, one finger tracing over his dimpled cheeks. "Definitely the dimples." She whispered and held his gaze.
They stared at each other for a long few moments. Before one or the other could make any move though there was a knock at the door and they both shifted around uncomfortably and pulled apart.
"I'll get it." Jordan said patting his shoulder and heading for the door.
Woody watched her go and tried to quickly compose himself as Jordan reached for the handle. He should have guessed it was Cal when she only opened the door halfway but after the past few weeks of sleepless nights and all of truths he'd uncovered Woody couldn't find the energy to tell his brother to get out again much less hit him on the other side of his face.
"Woody just…sit okay, give him a chance to explain himself…" Jordan begged as she ushered Cal into the room, still standing between he and Woody.
He wasn't sure if it was out of apathy or morbid curiosity but Woody just sat back on the couch and nodded.
Cal stood frozen for a moment, a million things running through his head but there was only one thing his lips would form to say.
"It was all my fault.." he said lowering his own head. "Pop seen me at the gas station..he…he pulled up, told me to go home and I did, I mean…he was gonna beat the shit outta me for sure but I just did it…and…and I was on the corner when…"
Woody cut him off short. "I saw the tape." He nodded, letting Cal know he didn't need to hear the rest of the details. "I saw the tape…and I saw you in those shadows…" His voice grew louder with each word, his body leaving the couch as he stalked towards Cal.
"and no matter HOW I look at this I cannot find one GOD DAMNED excuse to make for you this time little brother. Not ONE!" He yelled pointing at Cal over Jordan's shoulder.
Cal hung his head with a defeated sigh. "I'm sorry Woody.." he said still looking at the floor.
"You're SORRY Cal! You're SORRY!" Woody yelled. "This is NOT one of those times where you get to put on the crocodile tears and…and the sob story about not having parents and blaming everything YOU'VE done wrong in your life on our dead parents!" he said feeling his body beginning to shake with rage.
"Woody stop!" Jordan begged seeing Cal growing more and more flustered and finally seeing the two for what they were; a father and son. Not by birth but by circumstance.
"Get out of my sight." Woody spat out. "I don't even want to look at your face right now." He demanded and pointed towards the door, all thoughts of reconciliation gone from him mind right then.