After much good-natured pestering from her co-workers, Jordan had finally agreed to stop by the office to introduce Will. The morning after Woody left, she had thought to call and cancel. It hardly seemed the time to project a picture of blissful domesticity. But she resolved to go ahead with it, and the thought of being surrounded by her friends bolstered her.

She smiled through it all, as she walked through the halls carrying Will in his little carseat, and they admired his cupid's bow mouth and long fingers. Of course, she heard how much he looked like Woody with his blue eyes and dark hair, and she winced whenever his name was spoken.

Still, she enjoyed the visit and stayed longer than she meant to. Will began to fuss with hunger, sending the familiar tingling ache into her breasts. She frantically looked for a place to nurse and found to her dismay that her office had been turned into a temporary storage closet.

She could feel the unpleasant wetness seeping through her shirt as she ducked into Lily's empty office and lowered herself with relief onto the small sofa there. She laid her head back as Will nuzzled in with a little noise of contentment.

Lily breezed in then and crossed to her desk for a file. "Oh, I'm sorry, Jordan! I didn't see you there!" She smiled serenely and held the file against her in an unconscious mirror of Jordan's pose. "Look at that. So beautiful. I can't wait." Jordan looked up at her curiously. "No, I'm not pregnant! Jeffrey and I are talking about it, but we're going to wait a little bit."

That's what I thought, Jordan thought to herself ruefully but said nothing.

Lily crossed and perched on the edge of her desk. "How's Woody taking to fatherhood?"

She chewed on her lip. It was a subject she had meant to avoid. She was even prepared to lie that everything was fine, but she found in the moment that she couldn't.

"Woody and I..." She wasn't sure how to phrase it. Broke up? Separated? That seemed too permanent for a situation that she hoped would be as temporary as the clutter in her old office. "Woody and I are spending some time apart."

Lily's hand flew up to her chest. "Oh, God, Jordan! I'm so sorry! What happened?"

She shook her head slowly and looked over Lily's shoulder out the window. "I don't know. He's different."

Lily watched her for a moment with a creased forehead. "He's been through so much, Jordan."

"So have I," she said sharply, and then lowered her eyes. "I know he has. I know."

"You're newlyweds. You just had a newborn. Those things can test any couple. But add to the mix the fact that Woody just got back from Iraq?" Lily shook her head. "I can't imagine how hard it's been for you. For both of you."

"I just keep wondering..." She hadn't wanted to voice it out loud. It had been too awful to think about. "I keep wondering if we made a mistake. Getting married. I mean, God, what were we thinking? We've never so much as been out on a date. One roll in the hay, and suddenly we're married." She looked up, ashamed. Their night at the Lucy Carver Inn had been precious and private. She had never meant to speak of it at all, let alone to dismiss it the way she had, but Lily only looked at her with sympathetic understanding.

"I've been reading about this lately in the literature." Lily gestured to a stack of magazines and professional journals on the corner of her desk. "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in vets coming back from the desert. It affects the people they've left behind, too. The spouses, the families."

She rose and sat cautiously next to Jordan.

"I know it may seem hard to believe, but he's still the same Woody. It takes time, Jordan." Lily put a comforting hand on her forearm. "Time, patience, and understanding. Don't give up on him."

Contentedly full, Will was now watching Lily with wide eyes. "Hello, handsome," Lily cooed and tickled the bottom of his foot. He chortled and smiled a toothless grin, and it seemed to Jordan that there was all the hope in the world in that smile.

XXXXXX

The apartment that had seemed hardly room enough for one now felt unbearably empty without him. There was a part of her that hoped he would be there when she returned from the morgue and they could go on as if nothing had happened. The better part of her knew that he wouldn't be, he couldn't be if they were to survive.

For a year, she had dreamed of him, worried over him. She had imagined their reunion thousands of times in her mind. She had replayed their night together at the inn and in Germany, seeing them there, breathing as one as his cool, smooth chest moved over her. Reality had not been able to hold a mirror to the fragile fantasy that she had created, and it had crumbled over arguments of mushrooms and the price of gas and unmade beds.

He came by the next day to retrieve a few items he had left behind. It was awkward, as she had expected it would be, and when he thought she wasn't looking, she saw his eyes cut over to the space on the wall that she had scrubbed so hard to rid it of its ugly brown stains.

He sat on the sofa holding Will in his arms. "Do you want some dinner? I was just going to through some spaghetti on?" She cringed. It was absurd, inviting her husband to stay for dinner in his own home.

"I...don't think so, Jordan. I pulled the late shift this week. I should go." He kissed Will on the forehead and passed him gently to his mother.

"Oh. Well. Some other time." She followed him as he headed to the door.

He said nothing at first, but then turned with his hand on the doorknob. "I'd like that." He looked down, and when he spoke, she had to strain to hear him. "I want to see you and Will."

"I'd like that, too." She held back her tears.

And so it was a scene that replayed itself a few times a week as the winter thawed into a damp spring. He would come over for dinner after work and then give Will his bath before bedtime. He and Jordan would then chat about some interesting case at work, and then he would glance at his watch and head for the door. There would always be a moment, a brief, shared look of longing, and then he would be gone.

He never spoke of what had happened between them, and she never asked if he was getting help. But she knew from the dark circles under his eyes from the nightmares that robbed him of sleep that he was not. So, the continued on in limbo.

Will had just gone down on one of these evenings. Jordan had settled into one corner of the sofa, as she usually did, when Woody retrieved a brown paper sack from the gym bag he had brought in.

"What's that?" she asked warily.

"I pinned on major below the zone." He pulled a bottle of wine from the sack and held it up.

"Sounds painful. Translation, please? I only speak civilian."

"Oh, sorry." He smiled sheepishly. "I got an early promotion at the Guard. Say hello to Maj. Woody Hoyt."

"Well, that sounds like cause for celebration." She took the bottle from him and tried to hide the traces of unease in her voice.

They sat on the sofa talking of Will's latest doctor visit, and Woody told some gentle little story from his own childhood. The wine and the sound of his voice had lulled her into a state of contentment, and she didn't protest when he lifted her feet and stretched them out across his lap.

"Mmm. That's nice," she murmured as he pressed his thumbs into the center of her tired arches.

His hands ran along the soles of her feet and up towards her ankles. She closed her eyes. His fingertips were rough and traced circles there. She could feel the sofa's coils shift beneath her as he moved closer. He lifted her leg up the length of his chest and kissed her on the place behind her knees that made her weak.

She opened her eyes and let out a startled breath, but she said nothing. He leaned down on the narrow sofa so achingly close she could feel the heat rise from him. He waited for some sign of protest, but she gave him none. She raised herself up to meet his mouth, and it was as if every nerve stood on end.

"God, Jordan, I've missed you." His voice was rough.

She found herself loosening his tie for him, and she fumbled with his shirt buttons. Shoes dropped onto the floor. His fingers slipped under the neckline of her shirt, running along her collarbone to the soft outer curve of her breast. She had ached for his touch for so long she wanted to lose herself in it, to be swallowed up in the moment.

She felt his hands run down to her hips and around front to her zipper. Her eyes were open again. She put her hand on his shoulder and felt as if the words had to be ripped from her chest.

"Woody, no..."

He covered her throat with kisses. "Am I hurting you?"

"Stop!"

He blinked in surprise. "What's wrong?"

"This. This is wrong!" She wriggled out from under him and withdrew to the corner of the sofa. "We can't!"

He sat up, looking hurt and puzzled. "Why not? I thought things were going well, Jordan. I thought things were working out." He reached out to touch her face, but she brushed his hand away.

"Don't you get it? We can't pretend things are all right, Woody. We can't pretend to be this happy family. If we did this, if you came back now, you know what would happen. Nothing's changed since you left. I've been afraid to ask all these weeks, because I knew what the answer would be, but have you gotten any help? Have you even talked to anyone?"

She hoped he would say something, rail against her even. Anything but the awful silence. Finally, he picked his tie up from off the floor and dropped it around his neck like a noose.

"You're right, Jordan. Nothing's changed. I still love you."

"Then please. Please please please." She took his hands in her own and didn't even try to stop the cascade of tears. "Please get some help. There's no shame in it. Please. For us. For Will."

She could feel him go rigid. He slipped on his shoes and pried his fingers from hers. She waited for him to speak or for his stony face to show some sign of emotion. He rose and calmly crossed the floor and closed the door quietly behind them.

She sat on the sofa and hugged her knees to her chest as her sobs subsided. There had been no angry denials this time. He hadn't raged against her. He hadn't even said he wouldn't get help.

It was all she had right now, and she would hold onto that. She smiled to herself. There was hope in that, too.