DISCLAIMER: Don't own 'em. Willing to stage a coup.

FEEDBACK: Welcomed and appreciated

A/N: One down…uh… I've actually lost track of how many stories I'm working on. But I am working on them, I promise!

DEMANDS: Part Two

Haley continued his weekly "check-ups" without pushing, without demanding anything from her. He watched her grieve and then begin to heal. He was with her the first time Pollack's name slipped , unthinking, from her lips, the first time she forgot to remember he was dead. He knew the shocked expression on her face, knew the way her heart was pounding and was there to tell her not to castigate herself for it. He listened to the fractured tale of what was and the aching fiction of what could have been. He took her to a Red Sox game and watched her lose herself in the deceptive simplicity of the game. A homerun ball flew over their heads, leading to a scuffle a few rows back, and she turned and beamed up into his face, laughing. At dinner that night, he mentioned he was thinking of moving to Boston. "After all," he finished. "I can do my job almost anywhere."

She had looked at him steadily for a long moment. It hadn't been lost on him that she'd emptied her wineglass during the silent scrutiny. Finally, she nodded.

"I thought I'd do some apartment hunting this weekend."

"Why bother?"

He gave her a perplexed look. "I know I'm a workaholic, Jordan, but I don't actually live at my office." He chuckled.

She smiled back. "No. I mean, don't you already have somewhere?"

"Your place?"

Now she snorted lightly. "We're not fooling anyone." She took a deep breath. "Least of all ourselves."

He tilted his head at her. "I kind of thought we'd gone back to just friends. You know… after…."

"We had," she replied simply. "Things are different now, Drew. I'm ready."

He took her hand. "Are you sure?"

"No! Ask anyone who knows me. The only thing I'm ever sure of is science." She smiled softly. "But I've learned that some things no one is ever sure of. This is one of 'em."

"This?" He grinned. "This what?"

"You know," she told him, her voice low, her cheeks stained pink.

"Humor me."

She looked up into his dark, intent eyes. "Humor you?"

"Tell me, Jordan." His hand tightened on hers. "Tell me you love me as much as I love you."

She nodded eagerly, gladly allowing him to state her own feelings.

"No," he insisted. "Tell me."

Jordan swallowed. She spoke in a voice so quiet as to be nearly inaudible, as if the information were top-secret, which, for her, it may well have been. "I do love you, Drew."

He smiled broadly. "I love you, too, Jo, but I can't just move in with you." As her face fell, he held up a hand. "Believe it or not, I'm kind of old fashioned. I want a life with you, Jordan Cavanaugh, a life that starts with some very specific and time-honored promises, a life that includes our last name on a lease, a life that is both scary as hell and blissful."

Her jaw had slowly unhinged during his little speech. She closed it enough to ask, "Are you saying-?"

"I'm saying I want to marry you. I don't need an answer right away and it's not an ultimatum of any kind, Jordan. I'll wait as long as you need me to." He squeezed her fingers. "But until then, I'll get my own place."

She gave him a soft, stunned smile. "So, um, while you're – um – waiting for me… does that mean… you know? I promise I don't cry every time and when I said I was ready, that was sort of part of what I meant." Her face colored deeply, the blush dipping all the way into the valley between her breasts.

He was laughing gently at her. "I'm not that old-fashioned!"

That night, when he'd taken her to bed, there had been no tears after he made love to her, no recriminations, no ghosts whispering accusatory nonsense from the corners of either of their hearts. There had only been pleasure and connection and the beginning of a certainty that she would answer his question-statement sooner rather than later and that her answer would be the one he wanted to hear.

Approximately six years before…

Jordan glanced down at her watch again, certain at least half an hour had passed since the last check, only to find all of five minutes had ticked away. She looked down at the report she was supposed to be finishing. "The body is that of a thir-." She sighed. It had taken her the better part of an hour to get that part out. At this rate the relatively simple task of reporting on a motorcycle fatality could take the next year. And that would be just a little too long, I think.

She hadn't seen her husband… soon-to-be-ex-husband? she wondered… in nine weeks. It wasn't his fault or hers, although it was typical of the way they'd ended up. It had seemed one of them was always working. The saved – and the unsaveable – seemed to consume more of them than the living, including each other. Neither could pretend to be shocked at the turn of events, but their relationship – their marriage – had begun with greater promise, as though because they each had been so damaged in their pasts they could keep each other whole in their future. It simply hadn't turned out that way.

They had kept trying though. After a bare fourteen months of marriage neither of them was willing to walk away without a fight. Drew had moved out, back to the loft he'd bought before they got married and lived at Pearle Street. They'd still talked and spent time together. It was the last evening they'd been together that had Jordan on tenterhooks now.

She'd cooked for him. He'd enjoyed the meal as he always did when she had time to cook. He'd cleared the table, while she'd started the dishes. "It goes faster with two," he'd said when he'd come up behind her, pinning her body against the sink, and dipped his hands into the warm, soapy water to grasp hers, she couldn't help the gasp that had escaped her lips. Whatever problems they did have, sex wasn't one of them. He'd reached one hand up and, dripping water down her back, eliciting more gasps, nudged aside her hair. He'd brought his mouth down to the bare patch he'd created and had kissed her gently, slowly, his lips tickling her lightly. The kisses had trailed up a bit, leaving a trail of fire right to the sensitive flesh behind her ear. She'd felt her knees tremble as his tongue had darted out of his mouth to flick the back of her ear. She'd sighed his name as he'd moved his way along the cup of her ear and then down her throat, his mouth finding the pulse point there. He'd smiled at the way her heart hammered in her body, glad that he wasn't the only one experiencing that.

He'd reached up, cupped her breasts through her blouse with his still soapy, wet hands, provoking some loud squeals of protest that quickly became moans of pleasure as his fingers began to knead her flesh.

Wordlessly, she'd turned in his arms, her golden eyes dark with desire, her face flushed with the heat they'd been generating. She'd scooted over a bit and let him lift her to the countertop. After that some restraint inside them both broke loose and it was a scramble to get out of the necessary clothing. He was in her, possessing her body, taking what he wanted from her, offering her again his heart and soul, giving as much pleasure as he found. Her wild throated cries matched his own. Even as they finished shuddering in each other's arms, he was lifting her, keeping her legs straddled around his waist, and carrying her to bed.

Toward dawn, in between the rhythm of making love and drifting to sleep together, they woke enough to murmur sleepy promises to try again. His fingers had tangled in her hair, his thumb caressing her cheek. "Jordan, it's not the sex." He'd grinned lazily in response to her owlishly hurt look. "Not that the sex isn't a great incentive." He'd kissed her forehead. "It's because when I make to love to you, I remember what it's like to be connected to someone else, to someone I need and who, I hope, still needs me."

Jordan had smiled and snuggled up more closely to him. "Uh-hum. Yeah."

He'd laughed softly. "We'll talk about it when we're both awake."

That talk had never come though. The phone had rung less than an hour later. Haley was needed on a case, one he'd been working on for almost eighteen months. He'd tossed a few things in a bag, promised to call and said he didn't think he'd need to be gone more than a week or so.

That had been nine weeks ago. It turned out that the local law enforcement in Vermont had done an amazing job of gathering evidence and finding witnesses and, for the first time really, Haley had some solid leads as to the identity of this particular killer. As he had with Digger, he got more and more involved the closer the resolution seemed. Their conversations had been few and rushed. Jordan didn't resent that, not for the most part. In the end, Haley himself had saved the life of an eight year old boy while his agents arrested the killer. But now he was home and picking her up for dinner in…. Jordan sighed. In five fewer minutes than the last time she checked.

Lily stuck her head in Jordan's doorway. The grief counselor was a much appreciated distraction. She grinned at Jordan, knowing despite the M.E.'s best efforts to conceal it that she was frazzled. "What time's Drew picking you up?"

Jordan grinned a little. There were definite perks to having people who could read you so well. "Not soon enough." She shrugged. "Too soon?"

Lily nodded. "I know that feeling. Listen, I was going to run down to the corner and grab one of those green tea lattes they make. Want something?"

Jordan snorted. "Right. 'Cause I clearly need more caffeine right about now."

"Have what I'm having," her friend suggested with a light laugh.

That provoked a grimace. "Ugh. Those things are like drinking grass clippings."

Lily pretended to take offense. "And when – exactly – have you had grass clippings?"

"I haven't," Jordan conceded. "And now I don't ever need to try them." It was an old joke between them and Lily was glad to see it set Jordan at ease. Sighing dramatically, but smiling, Jordan stood up. "All right, all right. Let's go."

As they walked down the hall, Lily suggested, "Try one with honey in it."

"Oh, yum. Sticky grass clippings."

"Jordan." The grief counselor almost growled and then both women laughed.

Lily's little plan had worked, no matter what Jordan drank. By the time they got back to the morgue, she was relaxed enough to finish her report, change clothes and only check her watch every ten minutes.

Haley arrived on time, for once. Jordan smiled at the sight of him. Dark suit, white shirt open at the throat, tie discarded somewhere. The lines around his mouth seemed a little deeper in nine weeks, but his eyes lit up when he saw her. For a brief moment, he leaned against the doorframe and they simply regarded each other, happy to be in the other's presence again and yet, still, uneasy at what the night might promise. Both had important matters to confide and both squirmed inwardly at the paths their lives might take following their announcements.

They talked about work as he drove them through evening traffic to a little Brazilian place they both liked. Once inside they were seated at a small table in a secluded corner. Haley reached across the table and took his wife's hands. He stroked her fingers, watching the warmth flow into her cheeks and eyes. He squeezed her hands, ready to tell her what was on his mind just as the waitress arrived to take their drink orders. He smothered a sigh of irritation. Good service was always a plus. Well, almost always.

"Vodka tonic, please," he told her, his voice smooth.

Jordan glanced up. "Um – Ice tea, thanks."

Haley raised an eyebrow as the server moved off. "Ice tea?"

Her eyes met his and he felt her hands tremble slightly in his. She spoke with no preamble. "I'm pregnant."

She regarded Haley warily. They'd discussed children in an almost offhand, theoretical "when the time is right" way, Jordan, afraid her experiences had conditioned her to be a horrible mother; Haley, always haunted to some degree by the death of his son. But when Jordan had missed her period, when the home test had showed those two blue lines, when the blood test had confirmed it (as if the nausea didn't), she had known none of it mattered, at least not to her. She had loved the baby within her within the span of a single heart beat. Loved. Wanted. Needed. She'd realized the time is never right, not exactly. She'd spent far too many years of her life waiting for the time to be right. Right to have a mature relationship. Right to get married. Right to have a baby.

Drew stared back at her, his mouth slightly open, his eyes scanning her up and down, his brain working furiously to determine if he'd missed any of the signs.

"Nine weeks." Her voice gave the two words weight.

Slowly, he nodded.

Blushing lightly now, every fiber vibrating with anxiety, she joked softly, "Guess you won't help me with the dishes anymore."

He chuckled. "Are you kidding?"

"I don't know," she told him. "Am I?"

He leaned across the table, cupping her face with his hands. "You know what this means?"

His mouth was so close to hers, she had to catch her breath. She shook her head.

"Our trial separation is definitely over." He pressed his lips to hers, but pulled back when her response was lukewarm at best. "What?"

"Because of the baby?"

He leaned back, shaking his head. "No. That's what I wanted to tell you tonight." He grew serious. "Jordan, I don't think it's ever going to be easy with us, but I'd rather spend the rest of my life trying than live without you."

Her eyes warmed, sparkled in the light.

"And maybe after this one is born, I can help you with the dishes a couple more times." He grinned wickedly at her. "At least."

END Part Two