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Fear Itself

Chapter 4

Jordan watched silently from inside her locked office as Woody rushed from Garret's and toward the elevators. Nigel sprinted out of Trace to meet him there with a syringe, rubber strip, and vial, but she couldn't see anything else, the angle of the hallway too sharp. So she stepped back from the window again and turned to the empty room, her head spinning. She knew Garret had given him realistic answers, had told him of the gravity of the situation when she had been resistant. But if she had told him – if she had dared to voice how nervous she was, how frightened – then it would have become real for them both. Her mortality would have been thrown in their faces one more time.

Now…now she could live in her bubble of denial for a little longer.

But being locked in this tiny space was terrible. She tossed her head from side to side, vainly attempting to find some kind of distraction from her swirling thoughts. Her laptop had been left somewhere in the chaos, the medical journals had either been read already or held nothing of interest, the texts on her shelves long since well perused. Nothing.

Feeling the walls starting to close in quickly, Jordan took a deep breath and paced to the other side of the room without purpose. She felt dizzy and nauseous, and her brain immediately tried panic into thinking those were symptoms even while her rational side knew they weren't. She was getting a headache. She began pacing for real then, a nearly frenzied back and forth line in front of her couch. If she stopped moving, the reality of everything would hit her, and then – no. She just shouldn't stop moving.

She recalled, more than six years ago now, telling someone just before they were arrested that she wasn't afraid of dying – that that was part of her problem. Therapists had pointed it out to her time and again since she was a teenager. Why did you do that reckless thing that could have cost you your life, Jordan? they would ask. Because I didn't care, was usually her response when she deigned to respond at all.

That was still true, wasn't it? She didn't care about living or dying. For most of her life she had just existed, bumbling through day to day. In fact, before she got sick she could only think of two times when she had truly feared for her life – the first time was when she had been kidnapped by Cahill as bait to kill her father, and the second was when she had been trapped in the mine with those two wounded boys. But then those didn't really count, did they? She wasn't worried for herself then, she was worried for others. For her father and the boys. What would have happened to them if she were to die.

Do I still not care? She stopped pacing suddenly as the thought stopped her cold. Am I just worried now because of Woody? Of what would happen to him if I died?

When she had been sick, had been facing the surgery, the only thing that had frightened her was the possible outcome – being in a coma or a vegetative state for the rest of her life without the ability to end things herself. She'd said it before: Dying was a piece of cake. It was what happened in-between that –

Stop. Stop. Of course I care whether or not I live or die. I'm not the same person I was six years ago or ten years ago or twenty. My life has meaning now. Doesn't it? And I love Woody; I don't want to leave him.

People were darting up and down the hall, but she paid them as little attention as they gave her.

The dizziness grew with a throbbing in her head until she had to force herself to stop moving completely, and she dropped heavily into the chair behind her desk to dig out a bottle of ibuprofen. It would have to do until Woody got back with her perceptions. As she pulled out the bottle, though, a Post-it note in the drawer caught her eye. A phone number. Kayla's mother's phone number.

"God," Jordan muttered, staring at it for a long, painful minute. Can this day get any worse? she thought, not even caring that those words usually did bring with them "worse". But then…this was another great hole in her heart. She popped four pills into her mouth to swallow dry and unstuck the sticky note from the file it had been attached to.

She had sent Kayla an email a few months ago, checking in and wishing her luck for her senior year of high school. The teenager had replied with an excited few sentences. That was most of the contact they'd had recently. When Jordan had gotten sick, she had lost sight of a lot. Her relationship with many of her close friends had suffered, and so it hadn't been surprising that the stretched bond she'd had with Kayla had been strained. I wonder if she even cares?

But then she remembered Kayla's devastated face when they parted that last day, and she picked up her phone and dialed. It rang four times before her mother answered.

"Hello?"

She sounded disinterested and distracted, and Jordan almost hung up. She bit her cheek, though, and forced herself to stop being selfish. Or was she being selfish for wanting to call in the first place? Kayla wasn't her daughter. What kind of comfort could this phone call bring? Shit, maybe this wasn't a good idea after all.

"Hello?"

"Hey, hi – Mrs. Dawson, it's Jordan Cavanaugh." The words tumbled out, and she felt her cheeks flame.

Immediately the other woman's demeanor brightened. "Oh, Doctor Cavanaugh! How wonderful to hear from you!"

"Jordan, just Jordan. Please."

"Jordan, then." There was a clanging as Mrs. Dawson most likely set down the pot she was using to make dinner. "Kayla was just talking about you the other day. She will be so thrilled. I want to thank you again for everything you did for my daughter, Doctor Cavanaugh," she went on to say, continuing to use the formality anyway. "I know you were just looking after her for a few weeks, but it means the world to us both."

"I was only doing the right thing, Mrs. Dawson," Jordan demurred. For some reason that rubbed her the wrong way, and she wished Kayla had picked up so she wouldn't have had to talk to her mother instead – this woman who had appeared from nowhere to take away her own single chance at motherhood. This is her mother. Stop thinking that way. "Is, um, is Kayla there? Can I talk with her for a few minutes?"

"Of course! Just a second." She held the phone away and called off, "Kayla, honey, you have a phone call! It's Doctor Cavanaugh!"

Jordan closed her eyes and slid down in the chair until her head could lean against the back of it. Damned formalities. She had told her to use her first name. Why didn't she listen? Why didn't anyone listen?

"Jordan? Is it really you?"

"Hey, Kayla," she whispered, hardly trusting herself to speak when the teenager's happy voice filtered over the line and her mother hung up. "It's really me. How're you doing, baby?"

"I'm okay." Her wide smile was obvious, and Jordan couldn't help but smile, too. "I miss you, though."

Tears welled under her eyelids. Jordan tried to keep her sniffle discreet as she responded. "Oh, Kayla, I miss you, too. I miss you so much. So tell me! How's school going? You're almost done."

"Being a senior is awesome! I finally got into the AP art class this semester – you know, the one I was trying to get into last year? My portfolio is almost done." She giggled in that giddy way only teenage girls have, making Jordan's heart flutter. "My portfolio! Can you believe that? I don't think I want to go to art school, though. I've sent out lots of applications, but I still don't know where I want to go. My mom didn't go to college, so I don't really know what to do. You went to Tufts, right?"

The wide range in that one conversation brought a smile to her lips as her eyes darted over to her framed diplomas. "Yeah, I went to Tufts and the University of Massachusetts. I loved them both. But hey, don't let me be your example! I was a really bad student in high school, with all the bad attitudes and skipped classes. I'm still surprised I got into college at all." They both laughed. "Where did you apply?"

"Well, my art teacher talked me into submitting an application to the Savannah College of Art and Design, but I dunno if I'm good enough to get in there. It's also in Georgia, which is, like, really far away. I also applied to University of New Jersey, and UMass and Boston College here. My SAT scores were really high, so that's good. I just don't know what I want to do, you know?" The girl paused, and Jordan wished she could see her, could take her into her arms again. "How did you know what you wanted to do?"

"Well, I actually didn't know I would end up in this field until I…ended up here."

"Really?" There was hope in that one word. Maybe finding this number had been fate for them both.

"Yeah, really. I mean, I kind of knew I wanted to be a doctor, but that dream was so vague. I was just plodding through school, as most students do, when my door opened." Tactfully leaving out the sordid details of wrongful deaths and suicide attempts, she tried her best to give what advice she could. "You'll find your calling. Hey, mine took, what? Over fifteen years to really come out?" She smiled again. "I'm so proud of you."

"Why? That's something my mom says."

"You're not letting the past hold you down," Jordan said softly. "It took me more than half my life to learn to let go, and I still have some major issues with that. You're going to be okay, Kayla."

Before either of them could continue, there was a sharp tapping at the window by Jordan's door. Nigel and Bug were there with the kit to set up the sterilized "door" between her office and the outside world so things could be passed from one to the other. Nigel pointed to her, then to the door and raised his eyebrows, obviously in a hurry.

"Kayla, sweetheart, I'm sorry but I need to run."

"Oh, okay." Her disappointment was palpable even over the phone.

Jordan's tears sprang back again and she turned her back to the men waiting impatiently for her so she could brush them away and finish her conversation with some semblance of privacy. Nigel tapped the glass again, but she ignored him. "There's a lot going on right now, but I would love to see you soon. Maybe lunch in a few weekends?" If I survive that long.

"Yeah, that would be awesome. I want to tell you about my boyfriend, too."

"Boyfriend!" She sat up straighter, wanting to ask more, but Nigel angrily prodded the glass a third time and she let it slide. "Next time. I love you, baby. Remember that, okay?"

"Sure. You're okay, right?" Kayla asked suddenly, able to tell that something was amiss and lacking the subtle ability to find out exactly what that was. "You're not, like, dying or anything are you?"

"Everything is fine," Jordan lied smoothly, though it hurt her to do so. "I'll see you soon."

They said their goodbyes and the M.E. slid the phone back into its receiver before turning a vicious glare to Nigel. "You can do that without me!" she snapped, raising her voice to be heard through the window. True enough, Bug had already started; the two-way passage was almost halfway finished, just lacking the tubing for the sanitizing air. "I was busy!"

Nigel's mood was turning out to be just as foul as hers, though, and he held up a needle and three vials. "Doctor M. wants me to draw blood from you," he told her irately. "I need to suit up and come inside. Like I don't have other things I can be doing than dealing with your rank attitude for fifteen minutes. It's like entering a starving lion's den."

She clenched her jaw, glancing toward the ever-calm Bug (who was doing his best to stay out of their growing argument). "Give me those. I'll draw it myself so you can go do those other things and stay away from the scary lion."

"Yourself?" He glanced at her askance. "One handed? Please. Even the amazing Jordan Cavanaugh can't draw her own blood one handed."

"From my leg with both hands, you ass. Just pass the needle and stuff through when Bug is done. Since you're not -"

"Guys!"

They looked over at Bug in surprise. His face was pinched, and Jordan felt a sting of shame. They were all in the same boat here. She saw Nigel's face relax out of the corner of her eyes and she could tell all was forgiven. "This'll be done in a few minutes," Bug continued. "Nigel, leave this stuff and go away. I'll give it to her and then back to you when she's done."

Nigel sighed and gently handed off the supplies to Bug, giving Jordan a small, apologetic smile that she returned before going back off down the hallway. She wished she could follow him and be free of these walls, but she had the feeling she was going to be in here for a while longer.

"Give me a few more minutes," Bug was saying, and she looked back down to where he was kneeling to secure a seal along the floor. "We have a radio for you, too, to make it easier to talk."

She just nodded, quickly losing the will to communicate at all. But then her friend met her eyes, and they both felt the connection they had found – the one that had been forged the day she returned to work after her surgery as they sat on the floor together – flare back to life through the panic. Of everyone here, he understood what she was feeling, just as she understood what he was. Very slowly, she took a deep breath through the briefly subdued panic.

We walk around thinking we're in control of our lives, she had said that day. We're not.

No. We're not.