Author's Note: OK, confession time. I wrote most of this a long time ago, right after I first saw 'Tall Cotton.' I loved how the relationship with his sister showed a whole other side of Gage and I wanted to explore some of that in a story. Since then, I've come to think of this as a 'how it all began' story for Gage and Sydney, but I honestly don't have any real idea how to proceed from here, so updates may be slow in coming. Please review and let me know if this is worth struggling with at all.

Author's Note, Part 2: It will look like there has been a new update to the story, when in fact, all I did was correct a continuity error in Chapter 1. Please forgive the confusion. Virtual cookies to anyone who can tell what I changed and why I had to change it.

Should Have Been Me

By

Moviemom44

"Trivette!" Gage called to his fellow Ranger as he took cover behind the open driver's door of his pickup truck. Sydney was crouched in an almost identical position on the passenger side.

A hail of bullets forced him to duck below the driver's window that had been shot out moments before, pinning him against the inside of the door. From there he had to look behind him to see Trivette standing just outside his own vehicle, taking aim at the four heavily armed men shooting at the Rangers from inside a large shed. He shouted again over the gunfire.

"Trivette, cover me! I have to get to my sister!"

He waited a few more agonizing seconds while another round of shots were exchanged before finally turning around and making eye contact with Trivette, who nodded to let Gage know he had his back.

At the sound of Trivette's first shot, Gage took off for the barn where B.J. Ronson and his men had stashed Julie after they had kidnapped her from the Tall Cotton nightclub two days before. His heart was pounding as he offered up a silent prayer that he'd find her alive. Ronson hadn't avoided prosecution for more than a decade by leaving loose ends.

Rounding the side of the barn, Gage charged into the main stall area and saw Slater bending over his sister, preparing to stick a hypodermic needle into her arm as she lay on a cot next to a stall gate. Gage came at Slater on a dead run, leaping up and landing a spinning back kick directly to his right shoulder, knocking him across the aisle that separated the stalls on either side of the barn. Slater recovered and came at Gage wielding the heroin-filled needle like a switchblade. Another spinning back kick dislodged the needle and sent it skittering across the concrete floor to land harmlessly beside a water bucket, but Slater was still very much a threat. He landed a solid punch to Gage's midsection, doubling him over and knocking the wind out of him. Still trying to catch his breath, Gage felt himself being lifted off his feet as Slater slammed him against the metal rails of a stall gate and began crushing his windpipe with his vice-strong left hand.

"Die!" Slater screamed, the veins in his neck bulging from the force he was exerting on Gage's body.

Gage's vision blurred and his lungs were on fire. He tried to gain a foothold on the gate to push himself loose, but to no avail. Realizing his left arm was free, he brought it up over his head and slammed his elbow onto the top of Slater's head with the force of a jackhammer. Reeling backwards, Slater lost his hold on Gage, who managed to land on his feet but took two seconds too long to catch his breath. Slater came at him with both fists flying and caught Gage on the chin, lifting his face toward the ceiling. A steam pipe overhead caught Gage's eye. Leaping straight up, he grabbed the pipe, pulled his knees to his chest and kicked Slater in the head with both feet. Slater swayed like a lace curtain on a summer breeze and collapsed in the middle of the aisle.

"Francis! Francis!" Julie called out as Gage dropped to the floor, landing gracefully on his feet.

"Oh, sweetie, are you alright? Are you okay?" Gage asked, quickly taking stock of her visible injuries.

"Look what they did to me!" Julie wailed.

Coming through the barn entrance, Sydney watched as Gage cradled his sister's battered body against his heaving chest. He kissed her forehead and stroked her hair, whispering words of comfort over and over.

"It's okay, sweetie. It's all over now. I'm here now. You're gonna be okay," he promised. Remembering what Gage had told her about the beatings he and Julie had suffered at their foster home, Sydney's heart broke as she realized he must have said those words to his sister a hundred times over the years, every time wishing that he was the one who was hurt instead of her.

Gage hated seeing Julie like this. Hated the bruises and scrapes on her face and neck. Hated the needle marks on her arms, the dazed look in her eyes. But most of all, he hated how it reminded him of when they were little and Julie had taken a beating he might have otherwise had to endure.

Even now, full-grown and a Texas Ranger, having just punched and kicked one of her attackers to a bloody pulp, he still felt as helpless to combat her pain as he had when their foster father had come at her with a thick leather belt when he was only nine and she was just eleven. A skinny fourth grader is no match for a drunken dockworker. All he could do, all he could ever do, was hold her and whisper the same hopeful mantra over and over again – "Everything will be okay."

Tears stung the back of Sydney's eyes as she dug in Slater's pocket and found the keys to the handcuffs that bound Julie to the stall railing, worked the lock and freed her wrist. Instantly, Julie turned and buried her face in Gage's neck as he picked her up to carry her to the ambulance that had just pulled up in front of the barn.

"Syd – " he started to say, nodding toward the unconscious thug on the barn floor.

"I've got this. You just get your sister to the hospital, and don't even think about coming in to work until she's on her feet again."

"Thanks, Syd, I owe you one."

"You owe me a whole bunch, but what are partners for?"

He smiled back at her and something in his eyes held her gaze for an extra heartbeat. Then two. Somewhere in that fleeting span of time, a tiny spark ignited in Sydney's heart. Could the look she'd seen in Gage's eyes have been the twin to that spark? What would that mean? She shook her head, silently reminding herself that while Gage was kind, funny and excruciatingly handsome, he was also her partner and therefore not dating material. Period. But she hadn't imagined the connection she'd felt a moment ago. Maybe, she told herself, he was just conveying an extra measure of gratitude because she understood how much he needed to be with his sister.

While Sydney pondered the possibilities, two EMTs wheeled a gurney next to Gage and he turned to gently lay Julie on it. As the med techs rolled the gurney back toward the ambulance, Sydney could see Julie's slender fingers holding white-knuckle tight to her little brother's powerful hand.

Slater started to stir, moaning as he rolled onto his back. Sydney grabbed her handcuffs from the back of her belt, used her booted foot to roll him back onto his stomach and then forcefully tightened the cuffs on his wrists. When she stood up again, she saw the ambulance pulling away and for one brief moment a feeling of abject panic overtook her. She should have gone with him. What if he needed her and she wasn't there?

Gage sat huddled in a corner near the driver's compartment of the ambulance, trying in vain to keep his bulky body out of the way of the EMTs as they worked to treat Julie's wounds and start an IV of some medication he didn't catch the name of to reverse the effects of the heroin in her system.

As the ambulance screamed down the highway, he tried to focus on Julie's face as she lay, eyes closed, breathing evenly, on the gurney in front of him, but all he could see was Sydney silhouetted against the glow of the September sunset as she stood in the doorway of the barn, her face a mere shadow, her velvety black hair dancing on the breeze. He wondered if she wished she could have come with him in the ambulance. And then he wondered why it mattered, because, he suddenly realized, it did matter. A lot.

He couldn't remember when it happened, when he had begun to think of Sydney as more than a fellow Ranger, more than his partner at work. When they were first assigned to the undercover unit to ferret out El Leon and shut down his drug operation, he had been annoyed to be saddled with a rookie and a female one at that. But over the course of the nine-month investigation, Sydney had more than proven herself. She could shoot, fight and think on her feet better than any partner he had ever had.

When he'd gotten the opportunity to join Company B, he was pleasantly surprised when Walker and Trivette consulted him on who he might like to have as a partner. Being the new guy in the unit, he figured he'd be partnered with a Company B veteran, but given the choice, he told Walker there was no one he'd rather work with than Ranger Sydney Cooke. Her reputation from the El Leon operation preceded her and Walker and Trivette readily agreed to reunite her and Gage in Dallas.

That had been nearly six months ago and already the two junior Rangers had compiled an impressive arrest record, often solving cases that other agencies had all but given up on. Sydney was nearly as adept at navigating the Internet as Trivette was and Gage had a way of knowing just which button to push to get a suspect to reveal things he probably wouldn't have told his own mother. And when it came to hand-to-hand combat, the pair had an almost mystical connection that brought fighting to a whole new level; they were the Fred and Ginger of tae kwan do, with their opponents' hospital records attesting to their skill. It had reached the point where the word on the street was that if Rangers Gage and Cooke were after you, you were better off surrendering than resisting arrest. Of course, law-breakers rarely do what's best for them.

Gage was brought back to the crisis at hand when the ambulance pulled up to the emergency room entrance at St. Matthew's Hospital and the pretty blond EMT tending Julie spoke to him.

"Ranger Gage, you stay put until we get her out, OK? Don't look so worried; all her vitals are strong. She's going to be fine," she said, patting Gage's shoulder in a comrades-in-arms kind of way. He thought he recognized her from other incidents he'd been involved in. A quick glance at her nametag told him he was right. Last week, C. Wright had patched up two drug dealers who apparently hadn't gotten the memo about the dangers of resisting arrest with Cooke and Gage.

"Thanks a lot – uh…" He let his response hang, hoping she would fill in the blank. She smiled when she caught his drift and Gage felt the warmth in her eyes all the way down to his toes.

'Callie. Callie Wright, at your service," she said, tossing him a mock salute as she and her male partner carefully unloaded Julie and started rolling her toward the ER's automatic doors.

"Thanks a lot, Callie, for everything," Gage said, sincerely.

"No thanks necessary. All part of the friendly service," she answered quickly before launching a litany of medical jargon in the general direction of the first doctor who approached the gurney. The doctor nodded, asked a few questions, which Callie answered with more medical gobble-de-gook, and then turned a harsh eye on Gage.

"You'll have to wait out here for now. I'll let you know how she's doing after I've had a chance to look her over," he stated matter-of-factly, before pushing through the double doors that separated the waiting and reception area from the treatment rooms.

Gage sat down to wait, wondering why his reaction to Callie's smile made him feel like he'd just been somehow unfaithful to his partner.