AN: My apologies for the long delay in updating. Life kind of happened and before I knew it a four chapter lead dwindled to nothing. I promise to be more prompt from her on out...
Woody was silent for a few moments. Jordan reiterated her question as if he hadn't heard her, even though she knew he did.
"What happened Woody? Why did you leave? I know it wasn't because you went to that pool hall that night. There was never a report filed. You just baled. I need to know. Was it because I didn't tell you the truth about the baby?"
It was the first time, in a very long time, she admitted out loud that Woody was the father of her child. After the baby was gone there never seemed to be a reason to change her story.
Just before she left the hospital, Garret confessed that he told Woody the truth. In some small way it was like a burden had been lifted from her soul...but in that very same way it buried her in an unspoken guilt. A guilt that stayed hidden until now.
"Did you leave because you couldn't forgive me..." She let the question hang, twisting her fingers into knots, sitting there on the verge of tears.
Woody hated to see her cry. It made him feel useless and weak. Two characteristics he despised in someone. Especially himself.
He pulled her chair away from the table and knelt down beside her. "No. I didn't leave because that. To tell you the truth, if I had stayed in Boston I probably would have been a lousy father..." his voice faded out while he tried to form the words in his mind.
Jordan looked at him waiting for an explanation. The intensity of her stare made him uncomfortable.
"The day I was shot, I saw how incredibly naive I really was. Before I knew it anger was the only thing I had to hold on to, the only thing that kept my going. I knew it was wrong. My whole I believed in the old concept of Good versus Evil and I was afraid this time Evil was going to win. I'd already lost Cal and one by one I was losing everyone, and everything that ever meant anything to me. When I found out you were going to have a baby I knew there was no going back to the way we were. You'd moved on and I was falling back."
Woody remembered the night that led up to Jordan being attacked. He didn't care about police protocol. He'd stopped worrying about that a long time ago. Maybe he was looking to get himself fired. He had nothing else left to lose. He'd had already lost it all once before. His shield just didn't seem all that important anymore.
"I went looking for that creep because I knew you were right. I HAD written the case off. I didn't want to deal with it because I knew it was a lost cause to start with. I knew they'd give me...maybe...24 hours to look into it. Nobody gives a flying fuck about a dead hooker...the least of all the front office."
Woody stopped and smiled nostalgically at the picture in his head of Jordan telling him, in no uncertain terms, and in front of a dozen or so police officers, what she thought of his professional opinions. God he loved to see that fire in her eyes...even when it was directed it him.
"You used to tease me about my ideology... and there you were, with your hand on your belly, adamantly telling me that you thought I was the worse kind of hypocrite. I was driving home that night thinking maybe I was. The next thing I knew I was cruising that corner with a half baked plan in my head and an attitude to match. It wasn't hard to find him. I figured if I gave him a reason to come after me, I could rattle him enough to confess. I was going to go back the next night, with a wire, and a few guys. It was a cheap ploy but I thought it would work."
"You could have set yourself up to be killed Woody," she said softly, turning away.
"But that's not how it worked out. You showed up the next morning and started asking questions. You were a sitting duck."
"I didn't know..."
Gently, he turned her face towards his. "Don't you see? I did...and I didn't warn you."
"You can't blame yourself for that," she argued.
His voice was low and strained. "I do and I always will. I couldn't stay knowing that my actions almost lost you you're life...and that of your baby's. If it wasn't for me getting so far over my head...you'd be with your child today."
"It was your baby too," she whispered, staring at him with almost painful tenderness.
That stare was Woody's undoing. Those last few months in Boston he'd find himself stealing quick glances at her...wondering what it would be like if it was his baby growing inside her. The times she caught him she'd stare back. He assumed it was just pity. Those kind of pitiful looks he'd grown accustomed to from everyone else over that last year. But from Jordan they were different. It was like she pitied them both.
Even back then, somewhere deep down inside, who knew that Jordan wasn't being honest with him about the baby. He selfishly chose to ignore that little voice that told him to confront her one more time. He was too afraid of the answer...one way or the other. It was that point when he stopped going to the morgue unless it was absolutely necessary.
"I needed you..." she said putting her hand on his shoulder, almost reading his thoughts.
"I wouldn't have been able to help you Jordan. I had already destroyed us both..."
"You could have tried. You ran instead."
"I left because I didn't have a choice. My life was broken and there was no way to fix it. I knew if I stayed one more minute I'd end up taking you and probably a few more people in that Hell with me. I couldn't let that happen," he said gravely.
He took a deep breath and asked, "What would you have done if you were me Jordan...when it was suicide to stay and murder to leave?"
Jordan blinked away the tears at the raw candor of his question. She reached out and used her fingertips to brush away the ones streaming down Woody's face.
She remembered lying in that hospital bed debating the same thing. If it weren't for the loving support she had she probably would have left to start over again in some place that was barely on the map...like Harrison County, Georgia. She could see were Woody wouldn't think he had that same support.
"I don't know..." she admitted in all honesty. "...I do know I wouldn't have left without saying goodbye."
Woody gave her a lopsided grin. He'd told her goodbye. He just made sure she was asleep when he said it. In a gesture that was felt as natural a breathing, he brushed the pad of his thumb over the soft between the corner of her lips and the mole on her jaw. Saying goodbye to her like that was the hardest thing he'd ever done in his life. Under the circumstances it was the easiest way.
He opened his mouth to reply when the phone rang. He let it ring.
"You'd better get that," she said as the machine started to pick it up. "It maybe something about the case."
Woody reluctantly stood up and grabbed for the phone hanging along side the refrigerator, almost knocking it off the wall. "What!...This is Hoyt."
Jordan used the opportunity to escape into the bathroom. Jordan ran the tap and splashed her face. She blotted it dry with the towel, sagging against the porcelain, completely drained.
The room was so tight that you could take a shower and brush your teeth at the sink...all at the same time. Alone, she allowed herself to pick up Woody's soap. She could tell it was the same he used in Boston. Even under the more complicated scents of his aftershave and shampoo, she could always make out the simple clean crisp smell of his soap. There was always something comforting in that simplicity.
She jumped when Woody knocked on the door. "Jordan?"
"Yes," she said, keeping her voice even.
"We need to go."
"What?" she asked opening the door.
Woody looked at point past her. She could tell he was already retreating back in himself.
Their conversation was far from over. She swore to herself that before she left Derry they'd both find some closure.
"There's been a break-in..."
"Where?"
