AN: Relationships can indeed be tricky and nuanced but you always know when the details point to the conclusion. CJ between "Forget Me Not" and "The Elephant In the Room" usual disclaimer - I don't own etc etc etc
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The jar of moonshine sat on a nightstand mostly untouched, the noose cookies from the gift shop uneaten. Neither of them could attribute the night to a drunken mistake. Hunger maybe — but not for cookies or candy eyeballs...
When she'd looked deep into JD's eyes after solving the riddle of the young woman's death" and listening to the vulnerable girl speak of how to know if someone loved you, she hadn't been surprised to find the empty and quizzical look he'd given her, joking about the wine. He didn't really know her, couldn't always read her. Her disappointment must've been apparent because he'd mentioned "failing the test" before pouring her a glass of wine. She'd refused to be drawn into an argument and there was a slight air of frustration lingering whenever he'd been anywhere around and tried to broach the subject. And that was before the inn…
But after that night she was not thinking of JD and what she wanted out of their relationship. Sure he was smart, funny, sexy. But he was inconsiderate of her morgue family, wanting a story more than he wanted to protect the often fragile friendships she'd built and nurtured inasmuch as it had been possible for Jordan Cavanaugh to be in anything resembling a relationship. Instead she found herself wondering…Was that love ever going to be reflected by anyone else's eyes? Was it possible she'd missed it…?
And in the middle of her musings she thought back to Woody following her to California, killing a man to save her. Woody dancing with her at her father's bar. Woody having her back, holding an umbrella, giving her a ride from the garage, jogging with her along the pier, standing in the interrogation room questioning a witness, working on cases with her, making his famous spaghetti in her apartment, clubbing til all hours of the night, sharing a moment with her on the rooftop of the morgue building. Too many things. The memories just kept coming. She had known he cared and of course that he'd wanted more.
The ring he'd gotten her for her birthday that she'd returned had been…so unexpected. Or had it? He'd always given her space and time and it honestly had felt like he was pushing, but as Nigel had pointed out maybe she should've stepped up. And then it was awkward and weird between them, and she'd agreed to a blind date Lily set up and he'd lashed out, saying perhaps the wrong things but — didn't he have the right to his emotions? And the right to finally voice them? Her response was not what she'd wanted to say, but defensive and, well…accurate. But in light of the case they'd gotten called on, it was all they'd had time for. And so she hadn't known what else to say to get to a place where maybe he could understand her hurt too. Because she understood his. It was her fault, after all.
And then he'd gotten shot. And of course things had gone decidedly sour and Jordan had felt used and hurt because she had — and was — ready to let down her guard at last. Lily had tried to explain the trauma and shock Woody was likely experiencing, but she'd felt vulnerable and so she put back the building blocks of the few walls she'd let down. She wasn't sure he had noticed…or cared. At all. And that was like a slap in the face, the cold water of his reaction drowning anything she had hoped would happen after she begged him to fight for his life and stay with her. Their estrangement and all the days and weeks and hours once she'd finally said those words just caused the void to grow in her heart and so she'd readily let herself be drawn to the Aussie beau.
And she'd tentatively tried. With JD. To move on, like Woody had. I mean, sure there had been Danny, but that had been super casual and he was in Vegas, far enough away that the odds of it working out was slim anyway. It was…safe. And then there had been a few others in and out of her radar, but nothing that anyone would consider a strong possibility. It never was with her, they all knew it. And they all knew she would run at the first sign of serious anyway. The thing with JD had surprised them all, since it had lasted more than a week.
But...She knew in her heart that something wasn't there with JD. She shrugged it off, having never let herself get too far - except for Woody - since Paul, and Tom (who was married and a safe bet too)…and that was how many years ago, when she was still a child. And now she was older, and experienced and worldly in many ways.
Except for love. She was afraid. Everyone she'd loved left, eventually, whether by bad luck or chance or choice. And with Woody she hadn't wanted to risk losing him. So much so that she couldn't let herself cross that barrier. She just wouldn't. She flirted with it because it was easy and comfortable and like being safe. And home. It wasn't like that with JD, she knew it. But she still tried. Because she didn't know what else to do after Woody's rejection and the strange mode they were in.
But then the Lucy Carver Inn. She grinned to herself, thinking of Woody's astonishment that she didn't have a side of the bed. And the conversation last night when he'd asked about JD. She'd tried to skirt around it, but then she was curious. She really did want to know what he really thought. And their conversation was finally normal and easy and she thought she could ask. "I think we always know what we want deep down. Not what we say we want, but what we want," he'd said, and she had to agree. And then she looked at him looking at her and thought she saw the flicker of something. And like that she withdrew a little, afraid of the risk. The last real risk she'd take was probably…Paul? Before he had become a man of the cloth. Tom? Was it JD even? Everyone else was just casual.
But this. This was…different. Unplanned, unscripted. And she'd been wholly surprised in some way to see the old familiar glow in Woody's eyes, the earnest and intense gaze — the reflection of herself in his deep blue eyes even after all the ups, downs, twists and turns their relationship had taken. And she knew that he was reflected in hers as well. Leave it to JD to see it when she hadn't even been able to recognize it for what it was on her own. Love was, indeed, like malaria…and it had lain dormant for far too long.
When their lips met, tentatively at first, she was instantly brought back to their first kiss in the Nevada desert where she and Woody had finally moved a bit past friendship and attraction. But she'd pulled away. Her experience was to keep everyone distant because then she couldn't get hurt. And his friendship was too valuable to her. Again, she hadn't wanted to risk losing it. His boyish charm and Boy Scout ways kept him desirable during his pursuit, and Jordan had found it so difficult to resist him as his persistence continued, but she always managed to pull herself back. Thanks, in part, to ringing phones, computer messages, someone barging in at the right moment. She figured he'd see she was more than a train wreck with time, and the jeering comments from the other people on the force that knew her would surely discourage him. But he hadn't let any of that stop him…at least not for a while. He seemed to be able to gauge her moods and know when he needed to give her space.
Their relationship was difficult to describe, because they were the best of friends, and almost something, and yet nothing that was moving forward. Any time a conversation nearly pulled her in, Woody would say something that meant everything to her, and then he'd back off as she pushed him away. He let her be who she was, and though he had stated in word and gesture that he desperately wanted more, he didn't completely force the issue. So she was allowed to keep up the walls, though they were crumbling as time went on. But here, now, as they rekindled something she'd run from over and over in the few short years she'd know him, she wanted to just let herself feel vulnerable and loved…
When he had embraced her and they pressed into the kiss, she felt freer than she'd ever felt, even with the casual no-strings-attached encounters she'd had. And though she was afraid, in some small way, each time he looked at her she was reassured that his love was not merely borne out of passion or lust, but was pure and real. And though it scared her on levels she usually didn't even dare explore, that reassurance allowed her heart to finally give in to all she'd longed for.
Jordan had had sex before and was no stranger to pleasure but this intimacy was unlike anything she'd ever experienced. To say her walls had been let down was actually quite the understatement. They had been practically blown to nothing in that first glance, way before the kisses, the caresses. Through this whole case she and Woody had finally managed to recapture the ease and familiarity they'd shared, with the same tentative flirtation that made them spark each other into a partnership that successfully worked.
To say they worked well together was an understatement — they knew each other, could read one another, with an ease that was secretly envied by those who'd always wanted to work with and maybe even play nice with Jordan. They complimented each other, strengthened each other. Her friends at the morgue had long stopped teasing her about the possibilities because they could see the tangible essence of what could be, if only Jordan would make room for it.
When Woody had briefly moved on with Devon, no one mentioned the dejected and puzzled look that came over Jordan as she considered that she may have missed her opportunity. And when she'd moved on with JD after the debacle when Woody had gotten shot, no one brought up the fact that Woody watched her every time the Aussie was in the vicinity and even every time he wasn't. The two kept tabs on one another when they thought no one else was looking, but in truth everyone who knew them and what they'd been through wanted to sit them both down and scream some common sense into them. Everyone knew that Jordan loved Woody, but she was Jordan and she liked to think she was able to cope without any sense of codependency, and she'd been a mess over her mother's murder and her father's disconnect.
Everyone knew that Woody loved Jordan, but after he'd gotten shot they figured that despite that he was in a dark place and maybe wouldn't always just sit and wait for her to let their relationship go anywhere.
It was a topic brought up often, but never around either of them, the whispered disappointment and frustration culminating in fictional scenarios and plots to try to push them through it and back to one another — but in the end no one ever came up with a solid solution to get them to the next step. They were like two very stubborn children who refused to look outside of themselves. They'd each been through a lot, and the dark anger that was dormant off and on for the pair because of the histories they'd experienced separately and even together in some small shared moments where they'd confided in one another seemed to have silently sabotaged any chance of happiness for them. But no one said a word.
The creepy atmosphere of the Lucy Carver Inn was probably more than appropriate for this next step, because Jordan had been enveloped in a feeling that was new and almost other-worldly in its foreignness to what she'd always known — she moved tentatively yet with insistence as their lips finally met, because she was helpless to stop the rush of emotion swelling inside. After their caresses grew more intense, she realized that despite the snow and lack of consistent power and thus heat, she was not cold at all. There was a fire growing deep within her that was far beyond the regular curiosity when she'd been with any prior lover. She let herself go with abandon she'd never allowed, and when spent at last after the numerous exploratory kisses and the soft but firm touch of him, she rested peacefully in the afterglow of their lovemaking, Woody's arm protectively around her as if the moment were so fragile she'd disappear like the visions of her that had haunted his mind for years.
She usually didn't linger past the preliminaries of the sex act because that opened the door for exposure, and while during sex she didn't mind someone exploring her body in raw instinctive animal fashion, she didn't want anyone looking into her mind, her heart or her soul. So usually her inclination was to rush out to the familiar — usually work, where she could immerse herself in something other than feelings about her own life. There was no need for introspection about what she'd done, whether she considered it a sin or not, whether she was satisfied. It wasn't a place her mind wanted to go after her physical need had been met, so she moved along like the act of sex was just like eating dessert once in a great while — just enough to satisfy but not enough to linger over.
But this…this was so different. They had been friends for what seemed like forever. He had rescued her time and again. Just as she rescued him. Always acting in the best interest of the other. Except for the long months after he'd been shot. And that chapter, though recent and still smarting from the emotional hurt, seemed, at the moment, as if it had never been. And she was content to let it fade from her mind as she pressed closer into his warmth and let herself drift off and on between lovemaking and sleep — where she slept the sleep of a content and rested and happy woman who had finally found haven in the arms of the man she loved.
It wasn't until she woke after maybe the first peaceful night she'd had since her mother had been murdered and she'd been ripped away from her dad temporarily that she became sharply aware of her circumstances just as one who always had to have their guard up startles when it is mistakenly let down.
JD…She had just cheated on JD, which was maybe not entirely true because her heart had never been completely his. But she had tried, she told herself right before Woody woke and stretched beside her. And though of course she realized what she'd just done, JD was not exactly in the forefront of her mind the way he should have been. Her Farm Boy was looking at her, his eyes still reflecting what she'd hoped to see. It hadn't been just a casual thing then — which had been her biggest fear upon waking.
When she'd asked JD to look into her eyes that night back at her apartment, she'd known deep down all along that it was not JD she wanted to see reflecting that love. Because while JD stood there at her counter, wine in hand, failing the test, her mind had gone back to Woody. That disappointed look JD had seen was not because he had failed the test necessarily — it was because she had. In that instant she became fully aware that it was actually Woody she'd wanted to see standing there in her apartment. But there was still too much emotion with his using her and turning away in anger and all that accompanied the issues surrounding his shooting, and she'd brushed it under the rug along with every other vision of him as she had forced herself to drink the wine and move forward into a relationship that was…what? Buying time? Testing her ability to commit without sabotage? She didn't know. But she had felt decidedly empty that night and all the small talk had seemed trite. Jordan was sure JD had sensed it too, but she was unwilling to make the decision to end things because she was so confused. She wondered if something with someone was better than nothing at all, and then wondered why she'd waited so long to even ask that question.
She was brought out of her musings by Woody's voice breaking the silence. And with his questions, she felt suddenly very naked — emotionally. She wanted to tell him how she felt, because of course he wanted to know what it all meant and where they'd go from that moment — but she told him she needed time to know how she felt about what they'd done. And it was true. She wanted to savor it…Just in case he thought of it as a mistake. Just in case it hadn't meant the same to him. Just in case — like the crazy case they'd just wrapped up — some or all of it hadn't been real…
But she knew. There was no mistaking the looks, the kisses, the touches that had passed between them, and the familiar friendship that had always been borderline "something" was finally "something". The question honestly was "What does this mean?" And the answer, she hoped in a way she never usually let herself hope, would get them to "What's next?