A/N: Homecoming from a deployment can be a living nightmare, but never fear. Jordan and Woody will have a happy ending. Just not right away...

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She recognized some of the faces on the flight line from the previous January. The children were a year older, clutching their handmade "Welcome Home" signs. Infants who weren't walking before toddled along waving little American flags, oblivious to the turmoil their parents had been through for the past twelve months.

They were coming home, back to civilian life, and Jordan recognized the look of weary relief in their faces. But there was something else: a hint of worry in their eyes. So...what happens now?

It was a feeling she had just begun to understand. The minute she had hung up with Woody the day before, she had cried a short shower of jubilant tears. Then, it was as if she found a source of untapped energy in her exhausted body.

She braved the January cold and went for a mini-makeover: new haircut, pedicure, manicure. She stocked up on Woody's favorite beer, straightened and vacuumed. She had told Garret she would call him when she knew something about Woody's arrival, so she picked up the phone and began to dial.

It was only then that she felt a cold tide of anxiety, and she quickly set the phone back on the hook.

They had been married for almost nine months but had spent all but 15 hours of that time apart. She couldn't be sure of his feelings for her after all that time. And her own feelings? What of them? Perhaps what they had together only existed in the private little world they had created in Germany. In her fear and worry, had she merely gotten swept up in a romance too fragile to survive here in Boston?

"When's the baby due?" Jordan turned to where two middle-aged women stood chatting next to her.

"Any day now."

"They've been deployed for a year. How is it that you're nine months pregnant?" the first woman asked.

"We got married in Germany in May. It's a long story."

"Looks like Daddy's coming home just in time."

"Yeah. I'm just looking forward to things getting back to normal."

"Did you hear that?" The woman turned to her friend with a heavy voice. "She says she's looking forward to things getting back to normal."

"Honey, you're going to have to wait a loooong time for that." Her friend shook her head knowingly. "Sometimes, they never get back to normal."

Jordan opened her mouth to speak, to protest the ominous warning, but she was interrupted by the distant noise of the approaching C-130. There was a burst of spontaneous applause, and tears flowed freely as the plane soared overhead and glided to a gentle landing.

Her heart pounded as the door opened and the men and women stepped out onto the tarmac. She couldn't see him; she craned her neck over the crowd. What if he'd missed the flight? What if something had happened?

And then he lowered himself from the plane with his bag slung over his shoulder. She called out to him, and he searched the crowd for her. His tired face lit up when he saw her, and he sprinted across the tarmac to her and gathered her in his arms.

"I missed you. God, I missed you so much." He held her out at arm's length and ran a hand down her belly. "You're a sight for sore eyes. Both of you!"

She kissed him and couldn't speak for the tears. "I missed you, too," she managed in a rough whisper.

She had missed his touch. They rode home, some part of their bodies always in contact. Intertwined fingers, a hand on her soft cheek. He talked about his miserable plane ride home, and she tried to catch him up on her latest doctor's appointment

He hadn't changed, not much, anyway. He was thinner, his face leaner, and there were perhaps the beginning of some crow's feet around his blue eyes. He seemed quieter than before, but she attributed it to jet lag and general exhaustion. No, he was still Woody. He loved her, and her heart overflowed with love for him.

She pushed open the door of their apartment with a flourish. "Ta da!"

"You've made some changes," he said flatly.

"Well, you said you thought it needed a woman's touch. I've got kind of this whole fung shui thing going on. What do you think?"

He nodded non-commitally. "I don't want to talk about furniture or fung shui. I just want to wash off a thousand miles of

C-130 dirt and grime and then hold you for the next ten years." He brushed her hair away and kissed the place where her long neck curved into her shoulder.

"I'll be waiting for you," she purred, and he headed off to the bathroom.

She changed into a nightgown while he showered. She had found a maternity store she loved that looked as if the clothes had been designed especially for her: sleek, sexy, and a little funky with none of the matronly frills and bows on all of the other maternity clothes she had seen. She had bought the nightgown there and had saved it for Woody's homecoming.

She splashed on some of the perfume she knew he liked, and she was curled up on the bed as seductively as she could manage at 39 weeks pregnant when he came out of the shower.

He swallowed hard when he saw her there. "I didn't think you could be any more beautiful than the day we got married. I was wrong." He eased himself gently beside her. "Are you sure we're not going to hurt the baby or anything?"

She let out an airy laugh and kissed him. "The doctor said it was fine, Woody."

Their reunion was tender and passionate and wonderfully, lovingly comical. She laughed and cried by turns until they fell asleep in each other's arms.

She left him there in the morning sleeping as she dressed for court. He stirred as she left the bedroom.

"Hey...what's going on?" he asked sleepily, propping himself up on one elbow.

"I didn't mean to wake you." She sat down next to him on the bed and stroked his rough cheek. "I've got to testify in a murder trial. It's my last official duty as an M.E. for awhile. I really want to nail this creep to the wall."

"Yeah, you just want to show everyone how sexy a pregnant woman can be in that red suit." He grinned.

She rolled her eyes. "I feel like a beached whale. How sexy can I possibly be?"

"Didn't last night answer that question?" He pulled her down to him for a long kiss.

"I've got to go..." she whispered reluctantly in his ear. "Get some sleep. I'll be back as soon as I can."

She headed off to court feeling as light as air for the first time in months. The women at the base were wrong. He was home safe and sound. They were blissfully in love, and they awaited the birth of a healthy child. His homecoming had been absolutely perfect. How could she have ever doubted it?

The hours dragged on. She was the last witness of the day, and it was after dinner before she arrived home, carrying a bag of Chinese takeout. She excitedly fumbled to open the door to the apartment and tossed the takeout on the table by the door. It fell with a sloshing thump to the floor. She blinked. The table was gone. Her mouth fell open in shock as she looked around the room.

He had moved everything. Her posters were gone from the walls. He had rearranged the furniture and even brought up some of his wretched bachelor pieces from basement storage.

He came in from the bedroom with a cheerful smile. "Oh, hey, Jordan."

"Is that all you're going to say?"

"What? I just moved some things."

"But where's all my stuff? My posters? My lamp?"

"Oh." He shrugged. "I put them in the closet with my robots. It just wasn't working for me. I paid the super to help me bring some of this old furniture up and move some of this stuff around."

"Move some of this stuff?" She staggered inside and turned a circle. "You've undone everything I did!"

"I thought the TV would be better over here. I didn't like it in the corner. It's too far away from the kitchen."

"Is it going to kill you to walk the few extra feet to get a beer?"

He shook his head. "The traffic flow was all wrong."

"Traffic flow? It's an apartment, not Logan Airport, Woody! Do you have any idea how hard I worked on this?"

He put his hands on his hips. He had been working to maintain an even strain, she knew, but his facade was cracking. "I didn't ask you to do all this, Jordan! All I wanted you to do was...I don't know...put some plants around or hang some curtains. Not all this. Posters? Purple paint? That's not me! That's not what I wanted!"

"I'm your wife, not your personal interior designer. You didn't even try to get used to it! And I'm sorry, Woody, but you were indisposed at the time, and I had to make some decisions on my own." she said with bite.

"Don't give me that, Jordan. You just did whatever you felt like doing. As usual. You just totally got rid of all my stuff. I mean, come on! This is my apartment!" He glowered at her in the silence that followed.

"Funny," she said quietly. "I was under the impression that this was our apartment."

He looked away. "Jordan, that's not what I meant," he said, but there was still anger in his voice.

There was another long silence. His face burned red. She eased herself onto the sofa and waited for him to speak. He didn't but remained rooted to his spot in the bedroom doorway.

Finally, she looked over at him. "I think you should call my doctor. Her number is on the refrigerator."

"Why? What's wrong?"

She sighed. "My water just broke."