Chapter Nine

Ain't it Funny How Time Slips Away

She had finally found it. What she had been looking for. What she had talked to Dr. Stiles about so long ago after the bomb exploded on the train.

Unconditional love. Love that knows no boundaries, no end, and nothing that could stop it. Jordan had always assumed that it would be from a man to her.

Instead it was from her to Joanna.

On one level, it shocked Jordan that she could be capable of such a feeling. Unconditional love to someone so dependent on her. On another level, she was responding to motherhood like it was the most normal thing in her life – that she did it everyday and had been doing it for years.

It changed her. Love always does. She became more settled. More responsible. Softer. Even more compassionate. Those that worked the most closely with her noticed it first, but eventually no one could deny those changes.

So the years clicked by. Joanna celebrated her first birthday. There were balloons and a hideous pink Barbie birthday cake – the kind that Jordan always swore in the past she'd never buy for her daughter, if she was to ever have one. She ended up eating those words along with Joanna's cake.

By the time the child had blown out the candles on three more birthday cakes, Jordan had settled into a routine. She still lived on Pearle Street but had "traded up" her one-bedroom studio for a two-bedroom-bigger-kitchen-with-a-dining-room-and-family-room apartment. She had seriously considered kissing her old addresss good-bye, but found in the end, it held too many memories – both good and bad—for her to ever really let it go. The events between those four walls had helped shape her into the person she was. To let it go would be denying part of the woman she had become.

She worked the day shift only, but traded off every other weekend with a staff member. Max had stayed in Boston after Joanna was born and didn't mind babysitting. While hers and his past would always in so many ways remain the elephant in the room, at least the elephant was growing smaller and smaller with each passing year. Soon she hoped it would disappear altogether.

Her career was going well…her daughter was now in pre-school and thriving. Her morgue family was as close to her as ever. Garret had beaten his battle with the bottle. Lily had left Brandeau standing at the altar and was living with Bug. Nigel was…well, Nigel. Jordan's best friend, confident and doting "uncle" to Joanna.

Still close to JD's family, every Christmas Jordan would fly into Sydney, where it would be summer. She'd spend a few days with Pollack's family, letting them get to know his only child. Jordan had discovered through Tom, that despite JD's jokes, he had never been married. She had truly been JD's "malaria." Her heart broke a little each year with the knowledge that JD would never know his daughter and the Joanna would never know her biological father.

Father. Joanna had begun asking questions and Jordan was as honest with her daughter as she could be with a four-year old. She didn't hand Joanna the line the nuns had handed her about Emily. The words "God needed your father more than we did" never passed Jordan's lips. Instead she told Joanna that JD had been killed in an "accident."

Jordan figured that as time passed and the scar on her own heart healed, she could tell an adult Joanna what really happened. She did show her daughter the few pictures she had of JD, and marveled at how much Joanna shared both of her parents' looks, but her father's sense of humor.

Good. Everything was good. Her daughter. Her father. Her morgue "family." Her career.

The only person that was no longer a constant in her life was Woody. She still worked with him occasionally and he did come to Joanna's first birthday party, letting the baby feed him that cake with the way-too pink icing.

Every year after that, he simply sent his gift and card with someone else.

Jordan assumed he was either too busy with Lu or work to take time out to come to a little girl's birthday party, even though technically, he not only delivered Joanna, he was the first one to hold her.

Reflecting back, Jordan decided that she had been right all those years ago, before JD had been murdered and long before she ran: She had grown up. Woody hadn't. She had moved on. He had fallen behind. The few times she had worked with him, she had left the situation feeling a vague sense of unease about him. She couldn't put her finger on it, but something didn't appear to be right with him. At first she chalked it up to perhaps some lingering jealousy over him choosing Lu instead of her.

But that wasn't it.

Maybe it was the void their lost friendship had left in her life? No. She had long ago found other people to fill that niche.

So what was it? Maybe it was his attitude. Maybe it was just the unsettled look that was on his face most of the time. She finally quit puzzling over it.

After years of dancing, they had finally decided to get off the floor. They had both moved on. It was better this way…and far healthier. Jordan could barely find five minutes to herself in the morning to put on her make up. The thought of having to foster a relationship with him or any other man left her physically and mentally exhausted.

Joanna came first. She was the center of Jordan's universe. If a man entered their equation, he would have to rotate around her daughter, too.

Woody paused as he picked up his mail out of his box at the bottom floor of his building. Tucking it under his arm, he let himself in his apartment and slammed the door behind him, running a hand down his tired face. He threw the mail on the counter and then threw himself under a hot shower spray to try to revive himself for the evening.

It had been a long day…at the end of a long week…at the end of a long month…at the end of another long year. Fighting crime didn't get any easier and the criminals just seemed to get more violent and smarter as time went by. He rinsed himself off, wrapped a towel around him and found some old jeans to put on while he cooked supper.

But he stopped when his reflection in the mirror caught his attention. For thirty-eight he still looked pretty good. His abs were tight and the gray that was settling in at his temples didn't look half bad. His eyes were still the bright, pale blue always caught people's attention.

And the scars were fading.

Three surgical scars were fading into faint, silvery lines. While they would never go completely away, they were getting less noticeable. The last time he made love to a woman, she hadn't even noticed them. And they were doing it in the middle of the afternoon, at her apartment, with all the lights on.

He wished the memories behind his scars would fade that way, too. But they didn't. Like the scars, they had receded a little over the years. He didn't wake up in a cold sweat from a bad dream as much as he used to. When he drew his gun now, his hand was steady and didn't tremble. The sound of a car backfiring or a gunshot didn't send an irrepressible shiver up his spine any longer.

And now he always made sure he had good back up before he cleared a room during a raid.

However, the side effects of his wounds remained unsettling. He still, on occasion, had to be told to "check your attitude at the door, Hoyt," by the captain, even though those times were getting further and further apart. His last five psych exams had come back with glowing recommendations.

It was his personal life that was still the issue. What he had of it. Woody had reached out to Cal in the last year and the brothers were making strides at reconciling. They may never see eye-to-eye, but in some ways, they were all each other had. It had finally seemed silly to Woody to let Cal's past stand in the way of their future. They would always be brothers, and to his credit, Cal was trying. He had long ago left Wisconsin for Texas, where he worked as a ranch hand. The outdoor work and companionship of horses seemed to be exactly what the younger Hoyt brother needed. He was thriving and talking about purchasing a small ranch outside of Houston. He was eager for Woody to fly down during his next vacation and help scout out some areas.

Woody was flattered that Cal trusted him. The detective didn't know a damn thing about horses.

I know even less about women, he thought as he shrugged into a t-shirt. He and Lu had tried their best to make a go of it, but had failed miserably. The sex had been great – it was the time outside of the sheets that had grown to be unbearable. Lu's suspicions and jealousy of Jordan continued to grow as time went by.

Even though Jordan gave the woman no reason to worry. The ME had quite effectively dropped out of Woody's life. Except for a rare case together now and then, they never saw each other.

Woody had pointed that out to Lu after their last blow up, as she was throwing her things in her suitcase to leave. "I know," the female detective had hissed, "but I can't fight a ghost."

"You're not…"

"Maybe not here," she had retorted, pointing to the bed, "but here," she gestured to Woody's head, "and here," his heart, "I don't stand a chance."

That had been three years ago. She had walked out. He had seen her at the precinct for a few weeks, and then she transferred to narcotics. The last he heard, she had transferred back to Virginia.

So Woody, his pet goldfish, and a houseplant or two had been alone for a while now. It's not such a bad life, he thought, as he threw a Stouffer's Lasagna into the microwave. At least no one's yelling at me to pick my dirty boxers up off the floor or get my wet towels off the bed. The microwave dinged and announced dinner was served. Balancing the pasta, a beer, and the day's mail, Woody stretched out on the couch in front of the television set, flipping to ESPN to see if he could catch the latest on his beloved Bruins. Absent-mindedly he flipped through the mail. Bill. Bill. Advertisement. Bill. A card.

Turning it over, he ran a fingernail under the flap to open it. Birthday party invitation…Joanna Pollack. A smile slid across Woody's face. The little baby he delivered in the back of his squad car was going to be five. It didn't seem possible she was starting school this fall.

It didn't seem possible he and the child's mother rarely spoke anymore. If someone would have told him seven years ago this would be the relationship between the two of them, he would have laughed in their face and sworn he and Jordan would be married by now with two-point-five kids of their own.

Ain't it funny how time slips away….

He threw the invitation on the coffee table near his keys to remind him to pick Joanna up a card and present before next weekend. As usual, he would send his gift by Lily or Garret. Before he always used Lu as an excuse for not going. Despite what Jordan had professed to "being over" him and Lu, the ME had never included Lu's name on any of the invitations.

After Lu left, Woody knew it would be an exercise in painful therapy to see Jordan, her family and friends, and her daughter celebrating around ice cream and a cake with candles.

Jordan was settled…Jordan had grown up…Jordan had love in her life. She was content and happy.

Her life was a painful reminder that despite the years that had gone by, Woody's life had none of that. He worked. He went home. Occasionally, he dated. On even rarer occasions, he got lucky.

But other that that, he was alone in an existence of his own making…letting time slip away.