I found this on my old computer, half-written. I don't remember where I was going with it at the time, but I just could not resist finishing it up now. Set almost immediately after Crash.

(I am working on the rest of Wonderland, I promise. Chapters just take longer to edit and work out than these little one-shots.)

Enjoy!

Caravanserai

The hospital room was filled with a glaring white light when Woody opened his eyes. He groaned and tried to roll over; someone had opened the blinds on the window, letting in the blazing afternoon sunlight. The IV in his arm prevented a full turn, though, and the sun remained in his face. A strange smell wafted toward him. Someone – probably the same someone who had opened the blinds – had also brought him a food tray. Dinner. Lovely.

"You should eat it," a nurse tutted from the other side of the bed, where she stood adjusting various tubes.

Woody started at the sudden voice. He hadn't realized anyone was in the room. "Hospital food is disgusting."

The nurse chuckled. "Well, be that as it may, you should still eat it. You went for days without food up on that mountain." She gave him an easy smile. "Besides, you're being released today, and I know how you bachelors live. I'd be surprised if there was anything other than mustard and stale bread in your cupboard."

Woody pursed his lips, still a little too out of it to notice that she was only joking. Instead, he focused on what else she had said. "I'm going home today?" When she nodded, he continued. "What about my friends? What about Jordan?"

The smile faded a bit. "Well, Doctor Macy needs to stay a little longer. That internal bleeding was a bit worse than we had first thought, but he should be fine. We want to hold Doctor Cavanaugh, as well. Everyone else has already been released, or will be soon."

"Wait, why are you keeping Jordan? Is she okay?" He sat up in the bed and held out his arm when the woman reached for it. She didn't answer as she pulled the IV needle from his skin and pressed a cotton strip over the tiny hole. "Jordan." Woody said again, growing frustrated at the lack of information. "Is she okay?"

The nurse paused before looking at him sternly. "She'll be fine. Her doctor is just worried, what with her recent illness and all. He wants to make sure she didn't overexert herself."

As soon as she released his arm, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and looked around for his clothes. Overexert herself. Right. Not Jordan, oh no. "Am I free to go?"

"Yes, you are. And if you're looking for your clothing," she paused again and walked toward the cart she had near the door. "They were ruined. Here are some scrubs you can wear home. Your shoes are by the door, though I suggest you replace them soon."

Woody grabbed the ceil scrubs from her outstretched hand and mumbled his thanks. "Where do I sign out?"

"Papers are at the nursing station, as are your personal effects." She ambled over to the doorway and loaded up her cart. "And your girlfriend is in room 301, if you want to see her before you leave." She pushed the cart out of the room, a wheel squeaking down the hall as she continued her rounds.

His girlfriend. Woody almost laughed at the absurdity of that statement before Jordan's words came filtering back through his mind. Just so you know - I love you. His heart began to pound as he remembered kissing her, and the urgency with which she had responded. After all these years...

He shook his head and stripped off the rough hospital gown, only to pull on the donated blue-colored scrubs. He'd seen Jordan wearing them just as often as he'd seen her in street clothes, but he himself rarely had the pleasure. They actually weren't too bad. After a quick glance around to room to make sure he was not leaving anything of importance - the flowers from various well-wishers didn't count - he left his room and headed to the nurses' station.

The young woman there smiled up at him and pulled out a folder with his medical information. "All set to leave, detective?"

"Yep!" He nodded enthusiastically. "Where do I sign?"

She handed him a stack of papers. Some for hospital records, some for insurance purposes, some for his personal files, some for his doctor...too many to keep track of. He signed and initialed everywhere the nurse pointed, and then took his copies and shoved them into the big front pocket of his shirt, shortly followed by his wallet and damaged cell phone.

"The nurse who removed my IV - she said I could see Jordan, er, Doctor Cavanaugh before I left. Where's her room?"

"Down the hall here, then make a left. Should be the first door on your right." She smiled again and went back to work, leaving him to his own devices.

Woody nodded and walked off in the direction she had pointed, looking at the numbers on the doors. There - 301. Taking a deep, steadying breath, he knocked softly on the door and pushed it open.

Jordan was asleep, her face tilted toward the window, hair in a tangled braid over her shoulder. An IV like the one he'd had was attached to the back of left hand, which was draped over her stomach to keep from jostling the tube. There were also monitors hooked to her, and the soft beeps tracked the beats of her heart. It was an oddly comforting sound, those beeps. They were incontrovertible evidence that she was very much alive.

"Jordan?" he whispered, lowering himself into a chair by her bed. He felt a bit bad about waking her, but he couldn't resist. Seeing her lying there…he was nearly too overcome with emotion to speak more than that one word.

She immediately stirred at the sound of her name and slowly opened her eyes, eyebrows furrowing in confusion as she caught sight of him. "Mm, Woody? What're you doing here?"

The sleep weighing in her voice brought a grin to his lips, and he reached out to take her right hand - the one closest and not stabbed with a needle - in his. "I was released, but I didn't want to just leave you here."

She returned his grin faintly, a hint of that wild Jordan he knew so well just under the lethargic surface. "Thanks."

"I can stay with you for a while. If you want, I mean."

"Yeah, I'd like that." She blinked tiredly and tried to focus on his face. On anything but the tiny hospital room. "Feels like I was just here, you know?"

"Yeah." Woody squeezed her fingers, hating the memories of her lying in a bed just like this one after the brain surgery, no one knowing if she'd ever regain consciousness again. "Yeah, I know."

There was comfortable silence for a second before Jordan spoke again. "C'mere," she muttered, tugging insistently at his hand. It took a moment for him to realize what she meant, and she glanced at him slyly. "Your back will be aching within an hour if you stay in that chair. I'll be the boy," she added humorously, lightly patting her chest with her left hand.

"Are you sure?"

"'Course I'm sure."

Woody hesitantly emptied his pockets, slipped out of his shoes, and climbed into the narrow bed beside her, carefully rolling to his side so that he could rest his head on her chest where she had motioned. Her right arm wrapped around him securely, while he draped his over her stomach. She'd be the boy, indeed.

Her body was warm and strong against his, and the soft thumping of her heart was more real now, under his ear, than it had been through the monitors. "I love you, too, Jo," he whispered. "I don't think I ever really stopped."

"Guess we're finally on the same page, huh?"

He could hear the smile in her slightly slurred words, and that was enough to make him happier than he had been in a long time. "Yeah, we finally are." Tilting his face upward just a bit, he kissed the underside of her chin. "Say it again," he requested quietly, placing another kiss to the side of her jaw - all that he could reach.

This time he could see her lips turn upward in a brilliant grin. "I love you, Woody."

"One more time..."

Jordan laughed lowly, her left hand wandering across her stomach to find his and gripping it tightly. "I love you. Would ya look at that," she mumbled, her eyes sliding closed as she slowly started to drift off again. "It's getting easier to say."

"I will never get tired of hearing those words come out of your mouth."

Quite against his will, Woody's eyes began to close, too. Much as he hated to admit it, he was starting to feel pretty drowsy himself, and he was surprisingly comfortable, crammed into that little bed with her. Falling asleep would be inevitable. The events of the last few days really had taken a lot out of him; he couldn't even begin to imagine how Jordan was feeling, after all she had been through. "How long do you think we have until a nurse kicks me out?"

A soft chuckle tickled his ear as it bubbled through her chest and she shook her head. "I'm not gonna let 'em kick you out, Farm Boy."

"But your doctor -"

"I'm a doctor, too, you know," she interrupted playfully. "And I say you can stay as long as you want."

"Then I'm going to be here for a while."

Her arm tightened around him and she tenderly kissed the top of his head. "Glad to hear it."