Daughter of Thunder: Prologue

Katie Malloy+ Thunder Malloy Toni Jensen Malloy, Trenton "Trent" Joshua Malloy, Thomas "Tommy" Joseph Malloy, Tyler Jonathan Malloy, Tandy Joelle Malloy

A/N down at the bottom

Texas Ranger Toni Malloy sighed, being a Texas Ranger meant that she was used to going out of Dallas for undercover assignments. But this assignment was over; she had enough evidence to arrest the drug lord, Scott Wright. But here she was still outside of Amarillo, Texas, instead of at home in Dallas. Toni sipped her coffee and shook her head; she had been staring at the same house for four days now. It was Scott's home, but he wasn't there. He supposed to have been home two days ago. Suddenly a car pulled into the driveway and Wright got out of the car.

"Malloy to Diaz, Wright is home. I'm moving in," Toni said into her radio. She then got out of her rental car and walked to the house. "Scott," she called as she made her way across the street.

"Tami, what are you doing here?" Scott asked as he opened the front door to his house. Toni had been working undercover in Wright's cartel for two months.

"I came here to warn you, Texas Rangers are on their way here to arrest you," Toni said.

"Come on, we have to get out of here. We can go to Mexico until the heat dies down," Scott said as he closed the door to his house and made his way to his car.

"I'm not going anywhere, and neither are you," Toni said as she withdrew her gun and aimed it at Scott.

"What are you talking about Tami?" Scott said as he started to open up his front door.

"My name isn't Tami Jones. It's Toni Malloy, Texas Ranger Toni Malloy. By the way, you're under arrest," Toni said as half a dozen officers surrounded Scott with their guns trained on him.

As Scott was being led away he looked at Toni and said, "Bitch, I will pay you back for this. Count on it."

"I don't think so. You're going away for a long time," Toni said with a smile on her face. The case was over and she could finally go home. She missed her mother, brothers, and her sister. She also missed her boyfriend, Detective Carlos Sandoval. She has known Carlos since they were in the first grade and Trent and Carlos became best friends. The last time that she really saw or talked to him was when she was around fifteen. It was right before she ran away from home. When she came back she distanced herself from her brother and all of his friends, including Carlos. But when her dad died, she started to see Carlos a lot more and they both noticed that there was a spark of chemistry between them. When they first started going out, Toni was a little bit afraid to tell her family. She thought that Trent and her mom would find their relationship incestuous, since Carlos was like an adopted member of the family. But when Toni told her family, they were happy for them; in fact, her mom told them that she always thought that they would make a cute couple. She even missed Moses, her father's golden retriever. Well. Moses was hers now, Toni took the dog so that her mom wouldn't have to worry about caring for a dog along with three kids. But they saw Moses every single day because Toni lived right next door to them. She loved her family and wanted to stay close to them, she just felt that she needed her space and the house that she grew up in was too crowded. Plus, as a Texas Ranger, she was on call 24/7 and she was always going in and out of the house at all hours of the night. Whenever Toni worked late or went undercover, they would take care of Moses for her. Toni turned to her partner and said, "Hey, Diaz, do you think you can handle the paperwork yourself? I just want to go home."

"Yeah, no sweat, you did all the hard work. All I have to do is fill out some papers. Go home, I'm sure your company missed you while you were on loan to us," Diaz said as he and Toni got into their cars. A short trip later, Toni was getting into her own car and on her way back home to Dallas.

"I don't know what it is, but I just want to get home as fast as I can," Toni thought to herself as she made her way to Dallas. She took out her cell phone and dialed Carlos' cell. When his phone went straight to voicemail instead of ringing, Toni thought, "That's odd, he must be working on a case." All the while during her drive home, she had a sudden urge to get home and see her family and boyfriend.

Meanwhile in Dallas

Unbeknownst to Toni at the same time that she was taking Scott Wright down, Trent was being stabbed by an assassin in the guise of a priest. (Walker, Texas Ranger episode "Special Witness")

Toni pulled into her driveway and got out of her car. She grabbed her stuff and made her way into her house. As she went into the kitchen to grab something to drink she noticed that she had messages on her answering machine. She pushed play and continued to the kitchen and grabbed some ice tea. She was taking a sip when a message made her choke on her drink. When she first heard it she didn't believe it, she had to play it again to be sure that she heard it right. "Toni, it's Carlos. Whenever you get this hurry down to Dallas General, Trent's been hurt," was all that the message said. When she was done listening to it for the second time, Toni grabbed her keys and ran to her car. When she got into her car she pulled out her cell phone and checked it, she had accidentally turned it off when she was done leaving Carlos a voicemail. As she made her way to the hospital a million thoughts were racing through her head. She couldn't believe it, Trent was in the hospital, and by judging the way that Carlos sounded it wasn't good. How could this have happened? He wasn't working on a particularly dangerous case the last that she knew. The more she thought about it and the closer that she got to the hospital she realized that this was some elaborate scheme concocted by them. She pulled into the hospital thinking that this was all a joke and that Trent was fine.

When she got to the ER she saw Carlos, Walker, Trivette, and Alex standing around. All of them had either solemn or grave expressions on their faces. When Carlos saw her he went up to her and said, "Toni, I'm glad that you made it." As he said this he enveloped her into a hug, but when he looked down at her face he was surprised to see her smiling.

Toni broke away from the hug, took a couple of steps back and said, "Sorry guys, game's over, I figured it out. You guys are messing with me for various reasons. I have to admit I believed the message for a little while. But then I got to thinking; Trent wasn't in danger the last time I talked to him. But what I can't figure out is why is Alex in on this. Carlos, you probably had a romantic evening planned out for us when I got home. You probably made reservations at a fancy restaurant, but had to cancel them when I didn't come home. Walker, Trivette you guys are probably mad at me for being away so long when we all thought that it would be a simple and quick case." She looked around the group and was surprised to see that they weren't smiling; they were looking at her with appalling looks on their faces.

"Toni, honey, we're not playing a joke on you. Trent is up in surgery right now, he was stabbed close to the heart," Carlos said as he made his way over to her with his left hand held out towards her.

Toni's eyes widened slightly, most of her believed what Carlos had said, but a small part of her wished that it was all just a cruel joke that they were playing on her. "Come… come on, you guys are joking with me right? Right?" Toni said as she looked at them and saw that they were not joking. Her eyes widened with panic and fear.

"No, it's not a joke. I wish to God that it was though," Carlos said as he hugged her tightly. After a few seconds a doctor came out of the OR doors and made his way to the group.

"Doc, how is he?" Carlos said as everyone gathered around the doctor.

Well the surgery went about as well as we could have hoped. The knife punctured a lung and nicked his aorta. But thank God he's in such great shape, otherwise he never would have even made it to the hospital," the doctor said.

"he's going to be alright though, isn't he?" Alex asked primarily concerned with Trent's health, but there was a small part that was concerned with the upcoming trial that he was scheduled to testify in.

Well, it's too soon to say one way or the other. I'm sorry, I… I wish I had better news," the doctor said as he looked around the group of concerned individuals. He could tell how close they were with Trent just by looking at them. There was the Hispanic man, who was probably his best friend. There was also the woman who the man was comforting and judging from the resemblance that she bore with Trent, he would have to say that she was his sister. Also judging by how old she looked he would say that the two were twins.

"Can we see him?" Walker asked the doctor as Carlos gave Toni a one-armed hug.

"Yes, just for a minute. What he needs now is rest and your prayers," the doctor said as he gestured the group to Trent's room, Toni was the last to go in. she kept her eyes down and slowly brought them up so that she could see her brother. She only got as far as seeing his one hand before she bolted out the door and threw up in the nearest trashcan.

"What's wrong?' Carlos asked as he gently rubbed her back. He saw her book out of the room and followed her to make sure that she was okay.

"I don't think that I can go in there. I can't see him like that; he is always so full of life, now he's lying in a hospital bed near death. Plus, I thought you guys were playing a joke on me," Toni said as tears began to well up in her eyes. Carlos pulled her close to him and hugged her tightly. He hated seeing her like this; he wished that he could have prevented this from happening. He wished that this was a nightmare that he was having, he hated this as much as Toni. He wished that he could just take them away from all of this, all this pain and suffering. People that they loved and cared for getting hurt and dying. But this wasn't a dream and he couldn't take them away from this. He sighed and blinked back the tears that were forming in his eyes and led Toni back into the room. When she saw her brother lying lifeless on the bed, the tears that threatened to fall in the hallway started coming down like a waterfall. She turned her face away and buried it into Carlos' chest. Soon the doctor came in and told everyone that it was time to leave.

"If one of you would like to stay, you are more than welcome to," the doctor said. He saw how close these people were to Mr. Malloy and wanted to do everything that he could to help these people.

"I'll stay, I can't concentrate on anything else while he's like this anyway," Toni said through her tears, which were slowly starting to stop. Everyone else, who wanted it, was granted a couple of minutes alone with Trent to say something to him. Carlos was the last one, when he was done he gave Toni a hug and kissed the top of her head. He then promised to stop by as soon and as often as he could, he also asked her to notify him the second Trent's condition changed, either for the better of worse. He was halfway out the door when Toni stopped him. "Carlos, can you notify the rest of my family for me? They should be getting back from visiting relatives sometime later today if not early tomorrow. Oh, please tell my mom not to worry too much, his older sister is here with him," she said softly as her eyes started glistening with new tears.

"I'll call the house and leave a message, I'll also tell her to call the hospital so she can talk to you. I'll tell Tommy to look after your mom and the kids," Carlos said as he walked over to Toni and gave her another hug and kiss. Then he left to go to Ranger Headquarters to meet up with everyone else and start investigating Trent's stabbing.

For the next couple of days Toni sat in the same chair in the same room, watching her little brother's chest rise and fall. People came and went, visitors, nurses and doctors; but Toni was always there. A day after he was stabbed, there was a scare, Trent flat-lined and was clinically dead for three and a half minutes. Luckily it happened after her mom and Tommy left. When he flat-lined, Toni was pushed out of the room and she called Carlos to tell him what happened. When Carlos answered the phone he knew that there was something wrong because Toni was hysterical as she was trying to tell him what happened. The doctors and nurses managed to get his heart started again before Carlos even got there (even though he got there in record time). When he got there he was relieved to find out that his best friend was still alive, he stayed there for awhile to comfort Toni, who was still semi-hysterical.

One the fifth day of her vigil she fell asleep (she really hadn't slept since she was in Amarillo), she was awoken by a moaning sound. Then a voice so quiet she could hardly hear asked, "What time is it?" Toni, who was still more than half asleep, looked at her watch and said, "Almost four." Half a second later her eyes grew wide as she realized whose voice it was, Trent was awake.

Later

The trial for the mobster Morris Foley was over. With the help of Trent's testimony, he was being sent to jail. As Foley was being led out of the courtroom in handcuffs, he looked at Trent and said, "I will get out of jail, and when I do I will pay you back. Count on it." The guards then led him away.

Toni, who was there with Alex and Carlos slightly rolled her eyes and said, "Oh great, just what we need, another vendetta against the Malloy twins.

"What do you mean another vendetta?" Trent exasperatedly asked as Alex, Carlos and himself looked at her.

"It's a long story bro," Toni said as she wheeled him out of the courthouse and then proceeded to tell them about her assignment in Amarillo.

A/N I decided to repost this because I saw "Special Witness" again and I took the dialogue from there to replace dialogue that I had. Plus as I was re-reading it I decided to make changes. There should be another part coming soon if anyone is interested.