Disclaimer: I don't own Crossing Jordan. If I did, they'd have better medical consulants.
A/N: My God, an update! It can't be! No, seriously…I was so floored that the actual show STOLE MY IDEA that I figured I'd better show them how it's done. And can I just add that, as a medical student, the idea of Jordan, who is supposed to be an MD, being such an incredible wuss about a meningioma, which is a surgically treatable benign tumor, really gets on my nerves. I gave her a serious brain tumor, at least. And meningiomas cannot cause relapsing-remitting visual symptoms and grow around the common carotid artery at the same time. The common carotid bifurcates before it even gets to the brain. Get with the program, NBC!
She started with Nigel. He'd been her friend since the first day she'd walked into the morgue, still off-balance from her 'accidental' overdose and the loss of the residency position she'd worked toward for almost five years. Nigel had been kind to her – had simply been himself around her – and because of that, she owed him her life and her sanity a hundred times over.
"Nige?"
"Good morning, love," he greeted her warmly, looking up from his computer and raising an eyebrow at the dark circles under her eyes. "You look worn out. Big case?"
"No," she disclaimed, shaking her head as she closed the door behind her. "Nige, can I talk to you?"
"Uh-oh," he said, turning his chair away from his desk to face her. "This sounds like trouble."
"I just want to tell you something." At his raised eyebrow, she took a deep breath. The speech she'd so carefully rehearsed escaped her, and she reached desperately for the right words.
"Jordan?" he asked, concerned, and she shook her head.
"Thank you."
"For what, love?"
"For being you. Nige, you amaze me. I wish I knew how to have as much fun with life as you do. I wish I could enjoy things…believe in things the way you do."
"Jordan," he murmured, flattered and confused, but she shook her head.
"Don't ask me to explain, please. I just – I had to tell you that. And…do me a favor?"
"For you, love? Anything."
"When you find the lucky woman you're going to marry and have a bunch of kids, name one of the boys Nigel. Make it a family tradition." She smiled through her tears, standing on her tiptoes to press a kiss to the point of his chin; he was so much taller than her that it was all she could reach. "I can't stand the thought of there ever being a world without a Nigel Townsend in it."