Author's Note: I don't own either of these characters.

Technically, this should probably be considered a one-shot, since it takes place all at the same time and in the same place, but it was so long I felt it needed to be broken into chapters. Some stories begin with a plot, others with a concept, this one started with one line -- "But you're my partner!" Sydney cried. -- and has been noodling around in my head for a long time. Getting the beginning and ending wrapped around that line in the middle was driving me crazy and keeping me from working on Chapter 3 of Better Late Than Never, so I had to finish this and get it out of my system. As always, reviews are deeply appreciated.

Crossing the Line

by

Moviemom44

The smell of fresh cut lumber and the sound of sandpaper scraping a wooden surface greeted Ranger Sydney Cooke's senses when she arrived at the apartment of her partner, Ranger Francis Gage.

"Come on in, Syd. I'm in the kitchen," she heard Gage yell when she rang the doorbell.

Letting herself in, she called out, "I see you finally got around to disconnecting the hallway light from the doorbell."

"Yeah, but I almost wish I had left it alone. Sometimes I kind of miss it," Gage said as she rounded the corner to find him sitting on his kitchen floor in front of what looked like a miniature house made of unfinished wood. A toolbox sat open on the counter and several sandpaper sheets were stacked neatly on the sawdust-covered floor. A half a bagel with cream cheese lay on the kitchen table on a wrapper that said 'Dunkin' Donuts.'

"Hey, how old is this bagel?" Sydney asked, hungry after her morning workout at the gym, but aware that her partner wasn't the most fastidious person on the planet.

"Just this morning, Shorty. Help yourself," he said, smiling up at her.

"So you miss the flashing doorbell? Really?" she asked as she bit into the bagel.

"Kind of. Not that I miss needing it; I don't wish that I were still deaf, but installing that doorbell was the first thing I did here at home to acknowledge my hearing loss and then after I regained my hearing, it was the last thing to go. I don't know, I guess it was sort of the first and last step on the journey through a pretty rough time in my life."

He hoped his hastily constructed explanation sounded less like unmitigated bull to her than it did to him. He couldn't bring himself to tell her that what he really missed was the daily reminder not only of the way Sydney had cared for and supported him for all those weeks, but also of the first thing he heard her say when his hearing was restored. He had thought that disconnecting it would make it easier to settle back into being 'just partners' with her again, but he had been wrong.

Sydney wondered why her fun-loving, easy-going partner was feeling so sentimental this morning, but she decided she'd rather eat first and ask questions later. While she chewed, she looked carefully at the structure he had built. The longer she looked the more impressed she was.

"You know, Gage, I have to say that when you said you were building something for the baby's room, I was pretty skeptical. I had no idea you were so good at woodworking," Sydney said, adding, "It's absolutely beautiful."

"Backhanded a compliment as that was, Syd, I'll take it. I'm glad I can still surprise you now and then," Gage replied. He chose a sheet of sandpaper from a stack on the kitchen floor and began rubbing it along the bottom shelf of the bookcase he had built as a gift for Walker and Alex's new baby girl.

The design of the piece was simple, but Gage was proud of the craftsmanship. It was shaped like a two-story dollhouse, about three feet tall, complete with a gable roof, two shuttered windows and a door. There was also a delicate scalloped trim along the roof edge and two rosettes, one at each end that he had carved by hand. The "rooms" of the house served as the shelves, three small ones on the second story and two large ones on the first.

"Seriously, how did you learn to do this?"

Sydney thought she and Gage had told each other their entire life stories over the past two years and never once had he mentioned being a skilled craftsman.

"It started with a wood shop teacher I had in high school, Mr. Wessner. He was one of the few teachers I had who wouldn't let me sulk my way through his class. He kept challenging me and pushing me to do better than I ever thought I could. It turned out I had a knack for it and I'd spend time in the wood shop working on stuff after school and Mr. Wessner and I would talk for hours. My final project was to make and install a winding wooden staircase in Mr. Wessner's house. I got an A plus," he said, smiling, a distant look in his eyes.

"Gage?"

"Yeah, Syd?" he said without looking up from his work. He had finished sanding the floor of the dollhouse and had moved on to the upstairs compartments.

"How come you never told me about this before?"

"I don't know. I guess I really hadn't thought about any of it for a long time," Gage said, wishing she would stop making a big deal out of it. He really didn't feel like telling her the whole story.

"There's more to it than that, isn't there? What happened to Mr. Wessner?" Sydney insisted. She knew she was pushing, but there had to be a reason Gage hadn't told her anything about this man.

Sometimes she was like a dog with a bone; she just wouldn't quit. Gage knew it was one of the qualities that made her such an excellent Ranger, but it had its downside, too.

"He found out that I was in a bad foster home and tried to help me. He even applied with Child Protective Services to be a foster parent, but the family I lived with found out about it and we moved suddenly. I was only 15, and I had Julie to consider, so I had no choice but to stay with them. I never saw Mr. Wessner again. After that, I just didn't have the heart to dig my tools out of storage -- until now."

"Gage, I'm sorry you lost touch with such a special person in your life," Sydney said. "What do you think made you want to do this now?"

"I'm not really sure. I was trying to think of something special to give Angela and one day at the mall I saw a bookcase sort of like this one. It was really expensive, though, and it came in a flat box and had to be assembled, and I thought, if I have to build the thing anyway, why not try making one from scratch? So, I drew up a design, bought the materials and here we are," he said, pointing to his creation.

Sydney was touched by all the trouble Gage had gone to for little Angela. It had not been lost on her how much her partner seemed to dote on the Walker's new daughter. She felt a sudden rush of pride in her partner for putting aside an old hurt for Angela's benefit.

Again, he hadn't told her the whole truth. He really did want to do something special, something no one else would do, for Angela. He couldn't explain his deep attachment to that beautiful child. Maybe it was the way she always seemed to fill him with hope, hope that his future would not be as unhappy or as lonely as his past. Lately, he'd been thinking a lot about letting go of the old hurts. Building Angela's gift seemed like a good way to start.

"You could give me a hand," Gage said, nodding toward three small cans of paint lined up on the kitchen counter. "If I can get this painted today, I can take it to Walker's on Sunday."

"Sure. What do you want me to do?"

"There are some paint trays in a box on the table and there should be some small brushes, too. If you could get those out and pour some paint in each of the trays, by the time you get that set up, I should be finished sanding and you can help me paint it."

"You want a different color in each tray?"

"Exactly. Do you like the colors?" he asked, trying to get a girl's opinion. "Do you think Alex will like them?"

"Pink, light green and white," Sydney said, inspecting the colored dots on the lids of each can. "You can't go wrong with those in a baby girl's room. It sounds like the same colors Walker used to decorate the nursery. So, which color is going where?"

"I thought pink for the exterior, white for the interior and the light green for the trim around the roof and the windows. What do you think?"

"That sounds great, but could I try something in one of the rooms? I won't do it if you don't like it. I mean, this is your gift to them, and…"

"Of course, you can try whatever you want and I don't mind this being from both of us, Syd. You know that."

"Really? Hold on a minute. I have to run out to my car," she said, turning around and making a beeline for the door. Gage stilled his hands and listened as she ran down the stairs and then waited until he heard her coming back up before resuming his sanding. When she came back into the kitchen, she was all but bouncing with excitement.

"I thought this would make a nice wall paper for one of the rooms inside," she said, showing him a small roll of wallpaper border depicting a flower garden with tiny roses of pink, white and lavender. There were honeybees buzzing among the blossoms as well as a golden yellow butterfly fluttering on the breeze.

"Syd, this is perfect! Where did you get it?"

"From my car," she said, adding a sarcastic, "Hello! Were you here just a minute ago?"

"Very funny, Shorty. I meant how did it happen to be in your car? Are you remodeling or something?"

"Sort of. I thought I might change a few things around in the apartment, kind of freshen it up a bit. I mean, it's not like I'm going anywhere else any time soon, right? And since I don't have a roommate or anyone to please except myself, I figured I would make the place more 'me'." Gage noticed a slight dimming of the light that inhabited Sydney's eyes, which usually meant that she was bothered about something. He decided to let it pass. If she wanted to talk, she knew he was always ready to listen.

"Let me guess – this is going in…the laundry room," he said matter-of-factly.

"Actually, I haven't decided on anything yet. I just got a bunch of samples from the paint store last weekend to take home and try out. In fact, I had sort of forgotten about them until I saw your project."

"Well, I'm really glad you found this. If there's enough of it, I think we should use it on the whole second floor. What do you think?"

"I thought maybe just the middle room, just as an accent. You don't want to over do it."

"Yeah, you're right. We should keep it simple. Have you ever wallpapered before?"

"Never. You?"

"Once, helping an old girlfriend and her mom do their kitchen. We looked like the Three Stooges. It was hysterical," he said, laughing at the memory. It was unusual to hear Gage laugh about anything from his past. He didn't have very many happy memories after his parents were killed.

"Marilyn spilled wallpaper paste all over me --," he recalled, his voice trailing off at the mention of his former high school sweetheart who was killed along with her fiancé the night of his class reunion. His smile faded and a wistful look came into his eyes, like the one he'd had when he mentioned his former shop teacher.

Sydney wasn't sure what to say. She thought about making a joke about a "sticky situation" but decided she shouldn't make light of it. She knew Gage still felt at least partly responsible for Marilyn's death, not only because he wasn't able to stop the car thieves from shooting her and her fiancé, Ted, but also because Ted's jealousy of Gage and Marilyn's past had been what sent the couple to the parking lot in the first place.

She opted to not say anything and instead just walked over to where he was sitting on the floor, knelt down next to him and draped her arms around him from behind, her clasped hands resting on his chest. He reached up and held her hands in his for a minute before he spoke.

"She was so much fun. It seemed like all we did when we were together was laugh. I think that's why I loved her back then. She was my escape from how awful things were at home," Gage said, fighting the lump in his throat.

"So you two were pretty serious, huh?" Sydney ventured, not knowing if she really wanted an answer to the question, or which answer she would rather hear.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that," he said, stopping short of the whole truth, which was that he and Marilyn had been each other's first time. It wasn't that he didn't want Sydney to know. He just didn't feel like it was his place to reveal such an intimate detail about Marilyn.

"Is that why her father chased you with a shotgun? Because your intentions were less than honorable?" she said, not realizing how close to the truth her joke was. "That's hard to believe, considering what a gentleman you always are now."

"Hey, I'm a guy. I was 17. She was hot and she thought I was, too. I didn't have intentions, honorable or otherwise. We were pretty much just having fun and doing what came naturally. Come to think of it, if I'd been her father, I would have tried to shoot me, too." Gage said, a small smile turning up the corners of his mouth.

Sydney was glad Gage was finally talking about Marilyn in a positive sense, recalling happier times, instead of focusing on the guilt he still carried, like a wound that would never completely heal.

"So can I see the scar?" Sydney asked, suddenly recalling Gage's mention of it that night at the reunion. He had told Marilyn he still had the scar just above his left hip from when her father had blasted him with a shotgun loaded with rock salt.

"What? Are you serious?" Gage asked, incredulously.

"Yeah, I want to see it. C'mon, Gage, have you really got a scar or were you just trying to impress your old girlfriend?" Sydney teased and reached for his t-shirt to lift it up and look under it.

"Syd, you don't want to do this," Gage said, grinning but not with his eyes. He pushed her hand away, but she came right back at him. She knew she was dangerously close to crossing the line between helping him get past an old hurt and bringing on a whole new one, but she just couldn't quit now.

"OK, you asked for it," he said, grabbing her wrist and pulling her off balance. Quick as a wink, he was on his knees, yanking her in front of him and pinning her to the floor on her back. She threw an elbow into his ribs to dislodge him, gaining just enough room to roll over and get to her knees. Before she could stand up, he wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug, plastering her arms to her sides and rendering her all but helpless.

"Are you done?" Gage asked, his breath coming in short bursts.

"I think I may still have one trick up my sleeve," Sydney answered and lowered her lips to meet his. He let her kiss him for a second or two and then released her and stood up, turning his back on her. As she stood up and opened her mouth to speak, Gage rounded on her with fire in his eyes.

"Sydney, you know I think the world of you – and then some, but I never thought you'd ever use my feelings for you against me. So this kiss was a trick? Do you even care how that makes me feel? Have you ever kissed anybody without making an excuse for it or a joke out of it?" he raged, his voice growing louder with each question.

End Chapter 1.