AN: Sorry it's taken me so long to update! I have a new job and it takes all of the free time I had off my hands and shoves me into the working world! My chapters will come less frequently than I can sometimes hope but I hope you read and like them all the same. Leave me some review candy to keep me going!

What's the Worse That I Can Say?

Jordan lay alone on her bed, the sun setting outside her window staining the sterile hospital walls a soft orange hue. However, the colours did not warm the dark coldness she felt in her heart. She was sick and tired of the scene. She wanted to get out of the hospital and back to her life. She regretted wanting to nail Garret to the wall for sending her out in her condition because she knew that it was half her fault. She would give anything to go back to work; however, she was stuck, immobile for her pain.

She felt cemented to the bed with heavy plaster as her left leg and arm wrapped in casts. Her ribs swaddled in bandages, her right leg taped with gauze. The stinging in her head was unbearable. She hated the drugs she took for the pain.

She wanted to eat real food, not the crap the hospital served her. At least she could feed herself with her right hand, which was more than she could say about bathing. She wanted a real shower, not the cold-sponged strip show she endured with the nurses.

She sighed heavily.

"You look like you could use some cheering up," Garret smiled behind a bouquet of fresh autumn flowers.

"It'll take a lot more than flowers to make me happy," she admitted as he set them on the desk amidst the dead and dying. "Get me some case files to look over or something to pass the time."

Garret grinned slightly, "You would never rest if I did that, and you know it," he said, pulling up the wooden chair and sitting beside her.

"Suit yourself; you'll never hear the end of my constant wanting to get out of this place. I honestly think this place is hell. I would take the morgue any day. At least those people are dead when they're poked and prodded at."

He laughed a little. It pained him to see his friend in such a position, especially when somebody that she cared about had put her there to begin with. His laughs and smiles did not last long. His eyes clouded with a sense of guilt.

Jordan looked at his face, "Garret, I don't blame you. I should have known I wasn't in good enough condition. I thought I could do it and I couldn't. I probably wouldn't even have gone home if you'd told me to," she stated. Smiling a little to lighten the mood she quipped, "Besides, it's nobody's fault but that bastard's. He's the one who got in my way!"

He grinned, a small vein pulsing in his forehead.

--- --- ---

"Garret, don't even think about it," Woody was serious. He had on his interrogation face and his voice was that of distinct authority.

"She has to know, Woody. What would you think if your rolls were switched?"

"I would think that, maybe, she would have wanted to tell me herself," he softened a little, making it seem like he was letting down his guard, "at least, that's what I'm hoping she would do."

"She may very well have, Woody, but she would have told you the first opportunity she got. She has been in hospital for two weeks and you have still neglected to tell her that you were the other person. I am not keeping this secret for you anymore. When she finds out it's your ass on the line, I seriously hope you have a good explanation," he said, making the situation sound as worse as possible so that, perhaps, he could feel guiltier than he already did.

"Garret!" He barked. Then through gritted teeth added, "Don't you dare."

"What are you going to do to me Woody? Lock me up for telling the truth?" Garret threatened, "If you won't tell her, I will."

He fumed but did not know what to say. Instead, much like Max had two weeks previously, he began storming out of the Chief ME's office but Garret stopped him as his hand held the doorknob.

"Oh, and Woody?" He paused, picking up a file on his desk and staring him straight in the eyes so that the detective would know that he was completely serious, "I'll be visiting her tonight."

--- --- ---

Garret ground his teeth slightly working out in his mind how he was going to tell her. He did not have to say anything before she asked, "Garret, I know that face. What's wrong?"

He looked up to her with his questioning hazel eyes as if to ask, "Do you really want to know?"

She cocked her head to the side and raised her eyebrows, though painfully, in answer.

"We know who hit your car," he inhaled deeply; this was more difficult than he thought it would be. He figured that, with all the resentment he felt toward Woody for not telling her in the first place, it would be easy to inform her that he had hit her car but he realized, upon seeing her eager expression that he could not predict her reaction and this fact made him nervous.

Squinting her right eye, she urged him on.

"I can't Jordan; I should let that person tell you what happened."

"What?" she exclaimed, "You're going to put me through all the suspense and then say you're not going to tell me? Garret, I have a right to know, now that you've brought it up!"

"I know, I shouldn't have brought it up," he said, standing to leave now that he had agitated her. "Just, ask Woody, he'll know what to say."

Drown in confusion she asked, "What does Woody?—Are you telling me that he?"

Garret averted his eyes, a sure sign that she had guessed it. In a small voice, she asked rhetorically, "Why didn't he tell me?"

"Because he didn't want to put you in anymore pain that you already were in," Garret answered truthfully

Frustrated, she exclaimed, "Well, looks like he did a great job of that." As he had predicted, she turned away from him with attitude. "Why didn't anybody tell me if everybody knew?"

"He wanted us to keep it a secret because he wanted to tell you himself," he answered simply.

"So you all kept this secret for two weeks? Garret, I thought you knew me better than that."

"Why do you think I'm telling you this now?" He asked.

"I don't know, because you want to save your ass? Because you think that, I'll be happy with you for telling me the truth?"

Garret did not know what to say. He understood that she was hurt that everybody she knew and trusted had kept such an important secret from her and lied to her continuously, but she was acting so uncharacteristically.

"Jordan, we all wanted to tell you repeatedly—"

"Not good enough," she said, turning her head to watch the last of the sun dip beneath the horizon. Garret took her actions as a sign to leave, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets after quietly closing the door; he left her to fume.