So someone asked for a Christmas short, and I had this great funny idea, and I started writing it—and I don't know what happened. This happened. Not sure what the point is, and the end kind of fell apart, but I wanted to post it before Christmas, so…..Merry Christmas!
Don't own the characters, make no profit, etc….
--rs--
Steph sat at her desk, in her tiny gray cubicle, and debated measuring the walls. Last week, the cubicle had measured 6 feet wide by 4 feet deep. She was pretty sure it had shrunk since then. The walls seemed to steadily move closer to her desk, inch by inch. Creeping in. Closing off.
She shuddered and tried to focus on the monitor. The computer was running the same boring search she told it to run every day, on yet another punk Trenton wanna-be gang banger, who got caught carrying a concealed weapon. Of course, he only got caught because the damn handgun fell down his pants, right out the bottom hem, and onto the ground in front of a cop.
Dumbass.
And frankly, she could care less if he had any priors. Or had a mother who needed a wisdom tooth extracted while she was pregnant. Or that he had gotten perfect grades until the age of seven.
It'd been exactly two months, one week, and four days since she'd cared the slightest about any search she'd run.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. She whacked the heel of her hand against her forehead and made wet, noisy gagging noises. Only she could have turned into such a girl as to actually be counting the days.
But even though she'd turned her calendar over so she couldn't see it anymore – the guys were taking bets on why her calendar faced the wall. They were all way off – she still mentally counted the days.
Two months, one week, and four days since the last time Ranger had noticed she worked in this building. Since the last time he'd stuck his head around the corner of her cubicle and said "Babe," in that deep, comforting voice and asked her to stay late to have dinner with him. He'd stuffed her full of Ella's lasagna, walked her to the door, given her a tender, chaste kiss that left her heart thumping and hoping for all sorts of unattainable things, and told her he was headed for Miami. He returned a week later.
And not a word since.
No sticking his head in for no other reason than to smile at her and say, "Babe." No more private dinners upstairs with Ella's food and Jimmy Hendrix in the background. No more kisses – not the hot ones that melted her knees or chaste ones that held so much tenderness it made her heart ache.
Nothing.
She flung her pen down on her desk in disgust, cancelled her search on the 14-year-old baby bagner, and propped her chin in her hands. Things couldn't go on like this, or she'd actually start coming to work with a tape measure each morning to check the distance between her padded walls and her desk.
That seemed a bit crazy, even for her.
So it was time to come up with a plan. A plan to get Batman's attention.
And for a plan, she needed all sorts of things. Like Lula and Mary Lou and Ben and Jerry and maybe even Captain Morgan. She stood and inched her nose up above the walls of her cubicle to check out the control room. No activity. Nothing much of anything going on. A printer whirled somewhere, the heater kicked on. There was a low murmur of voices.
No one would even notice she'd gone.
She scooped up her coat, scarf, gloves and pocketbook, scooted out of her cubicle and dashed down the hall. No one even looked up as she waited for the elevator, trying to hide her coat behind her. Success. She was in the car, down the street, and on the phone to Mary Lou in under two minutes.
"Can you meet me at the bonds office," Steph said when Mary Lou answered. "It's an emergency."
"A pint of Ben and Jerry's emergency or a drop the kids off with grandma and stop on the way for a handle of tequila and a bottle of margarita mix emergency."
She stared to say the first, until she remembered just how close the walls had moved today. "The second one. I'll get the ice."
She beat Mary Lou to the bond's office, but then, she didn't have three screaming kids to bundle up and cart around. She balanced a bucket of chicken on her knee, stuck the plastic knot on the bag of ice between her teeth, and wrenched the door open.
"Girl, you look like you're moving in," Lula said, dropping her magazine and lurching to her feet. "You know we don't need you to come back to work here, right? We're managing just fine with me as the primo bounty hunter."
Connie snorted. "Oh yeah. We're managing."
Steph dropped everything and blew her hair out of her eyes. "We have an emergency."
Both women looked at the bag of ice leaving a wet spot on the floor and back up at Steph.
"Mary Lou's bringing the tequila and margarita mix."
"That's a big emergency," Lula said. "You find some more bodies somewhere?"
"No way," Connie said. "Tequila means it's personal."
"Is this about Ranger? Tank told me he's being more surly than usual. Tank figures he just needs to get laid."
"I need to get laid," Steph said. She'd been counting those days too, and it was a hell of a lot longer than two months, one week, and four days.
Lula nodded in a big, exaggerated motion and smacked her gum. "Yep. That too. I gotta tell you, Tank's got this great move where he takes his tongue and—"
"Stop!"
Lula's gaze swung between Steph and Connie, who had both yelled at the same time, and shrugged. "Your loss. It's a good move."
"I can use my imagination," Connie said. "And Steph, I've gotten laid more recently than you. I'm all about a plan that gets you laid. Especially if we're getting you laid by the hottest man to walk the Earth."
"Well," Steph hedged. Lula's eager look gave her pause. She hadn't thought this plan through before she raced across town. Anything she said was sure to get passed on to Tank, who would tell Ranger……That may be a level of humiliation she couldn't handle, even if it meant getting laid.
"Oh you can't try to get out of this now," Lula said. "We all know that's what you want. You haven't talked about the cop in months and you make moon eyes at Ranger every time you see him."
"I do not!"
Connie and Lula exchanged a look that told Steph just how bad the "moon eyes" had gotten. Cripes.
The door opened, bringing with it a gust of frigid air, snow flurries Mary Lou, and the margaritas.
"Now this is a party!" Lula said, taking massive bottle of tequila from Mary Lou. "Let's get to planning."
--rs--
Steph woke on the floor of the Bond's Office, with her head resting on the empty bottle of tequila. "Ugh." She rolled off the hard, glass bottle, cushioned her sore neck under her hands, and stared out the door at the snowflakes outside. In the orange streetlight, they seemed to glow as they drifted lazily to the sidewalk.
All she had to show for the night was a monster hangover. No plan.
She groaned and managed to get herself to a sitting position. The other girls were sprawled in various similar positions. Lula used Connie's boots as a pillow, Connie used Mary Lou's ankle. Mary Lou was on her knees in front of the couch, the top half of her body tumped onto the cushions.
"Oh god." None of them were going to be able to function at work tomorrow. Today. She lugged herself to her feet, the thought of McDonald's the only thing making her move. An hour later, standing beneath a burning hot shower, her belly full of greasy fries and sharp, caffeinated coke, it came to her. A plan.
It was risky. It'd take several of the Merry Men. It could back-fire in a major way.
But hell, when had that stopped her before?
It seemed so simple now. The last time she and Ranger had been together was because of a deal. A deal he offered because she'd pissed him off by hanging up on him.
So there it was. The plan. Piss Ranger off. Royally piss him off. And see what kind of punishment he came up with this time.
--rs--
She started with Hal. Talk about moon eyes – the guys had been giving her "be my baby" looks for months now. She figured he would keep her secret. Every morning, at 10:05, he walked past her desk on his way to his second cup of coffee, tapped his fingers on the wall of her cubicle, and said, "Hey Steph, how's it going?"
At 10:03, she got everything ready. At 10:04, she crawled under her desk, leaving only her butt in view of anyone walking past. At 10:05, she heard the tell-tale tap of Hal's fingers. "Hey Steph, how's—" The rest of his daily greeting garbled as he got an eyeful of her ass waving in the air. "You, uh—" he cleared his throat "—need some help?"
She peered under her arm, smiled up at him, and said, "Oh, hi Hal! This outlet doesn't seem to be working anymore."
"Would, uh, you like some help?"
"Sure!" She scooted over, still on her hands and knees, leaving Hal just enough room to crawl in beside her. He hemmed and hawed behind her for a second before finally joining her under the desk.
He fiddled with the cords and said, "That's weird. The lights on."
"I have a confession, Hal," Steph whispered in her most seductive voice.
His eyes, huge and round, swung to look at her. His adam's apple bobbed and an odd, squeaking noise escaped him. "What, uh," he creaked out, "what's that?"
She ignored the twinge of guilt she felt at using him like this, but kept going anyway. "I need your help."
"Sure, Steph. Anything. You know that."
"I have a secret, covert operation. Think you can handle it?"
--rs--
She went for Lester next. But the seduction routine wouldn't work on Lester. Lester couldn't be bought with a sexy voice. She's actually have to sleep with him, and as much as she wanted to get laid, she wasn't about to get near Lester. No telling how many diseases were swimming in that player, hot as he was.
No, with Lester, she had an even better plan. Lester would do anything for a good practical joke, and this was nothing if not a perfect practical joke.
After all, it wouldn't be Lester Ranger would punish.
After Lester, she recruited Hector. He seemed to keep plenty of secrets, and she was pretty sure he wouldn't rat her out to Ranger. Besides Hector was the best at surveillance equipment, and this would require his….special touch.
The next day was December 21st. The perfect day to start.
--rs--
The scary thing was it, went off without a hitch. She and Mary Lou spent the evening shopping, and Hal showed up at 2:00 am on the dot, to get her. They loaded his truck with everything she'd bought and headed for Rangeman.
Lester's role was to keep everyone working at two am from noticing what they were doing. She didn't ask how he accomplished this, as he had thrown around words like "strip" and "fake seizure." Better not to know.
Hector was on the security cameras. He put the cameras on a loop as they arrived. Anyone tomorrow who checked the footage would see nothing. They would be ghosts.
She and Hal worked fast – it only took twenty minutes.
She couldn't wait to see the look on Ranger's face tomorrow.
--rs--
She was at her desk by 8:15 the next morning, before most of the night crew had left and the day crew showed up. The night crew, those whom Lester had kept "occupied," kept looking around the control room and scratching their head. The day crew, as they arrived, looked around with wide eyes, mumbled under their breaths, and walked on.
At 8:42, Ranger walked in.
Steph heard the tell-tale hush fall over the room, and stood up enough to stick her nose over the wall of her cubicle. Ranger stood, arms crossed, staring at the Christmas decorations she and Hal had put up. Snowflakes and garland, stockings and ornaments, raindeer and baby-Jesus pictures.
And to top it off, on one of the rarely-used desks in the center of the room, a complete Nativity scene.
A muscle ticked in Ranger's jaw. His dark eyes slowly roamed the room, taking in each gaudy piece of decoration, and each of his employee's faces. Looking for the guilty party. Steph ducked before he got to her. She hoped Hal ducked too.
"Who's responsible for this?" he said, his low, soft voice cutting across the control room worse than if he'd shouted.
Shit. He was more pissed than she'd expected. She almost considered calling off the rest of the plan, but hell, it was all in motion now.
No one volunteered to take responsibility.
Ranger walked over to Hector, who still sat at the security cameras, and made a circular motion with his hand. Hector rewound the tape.
At 2:25, the control room looked normal. At 2:26, bam!, Christmas decorations were up.
Ranger watched three times, then turned to face the room. "I'm guessing this is someone's idea of a practical joke. I'll be out of the office the rest of the day. When I come back tomorrow, it'd better be gone."
With that, he turned around, walked to the stairs, and let the door slam behind him.
The entire control room let out a breath in one relieved whoosh. And immediately, the questions started flying. Who did it? Who doctored the tape? Did that seizure Lester had have something to do with this?
A little after three, Bobby stuck his head in her cubicle. "I'm hurt, Steph, really. You included Lester and not me?"
Steph squeaked, slouched in her chair, and said, "Keep your voice down!" Then she remembered she should be denying it. "And I didn't have anything to do with it."
"Too late," Bobby said with a grin. "What's phase two? I want in."
She pressed the backs of her hands to her flaming cheeks – she was going to have to work on her covert skills if she got caught that easily – and rolled her eyes. "I don't know, Bobby. He seemed really mad. I think I should call phase two off."
"Nah, he's been mad for months about something else. It's about time we loosen him up. What's phase two?"
She shifted in her chair before confession. "A tree."
Bobby threw his head back and hooted with laughter. "Perfect. Do you have phase thee planned?"
She bit down on her bottom lip and whispered, "Tinsel."
"Tinsel?"
"You know, the silver, sparkly stuff. Tinsel. Everywhere."
Bobby's eyes widened, and then his mouth slowly curved into a wide, wicked grin. "I'm so in. Do you already have the tree?"
She shook her head. That part of the logistics she'd been struggling with. How to get it, what to do with it until they could sneak it in, how to transport it.
"I'll be at your apartment at six," Bobby said. "I have a plan."
--rs--
At 8:41, Ranger walked in—and froze. "What the fuck is this?"
Uh-oh. Ranger didn't curse often, and he never yelled. Steph ducked behind the wall of her cubicle, breathed through her nose, and counted to ten. When her heart was still galloping out of her chest when she got to ten, she kept counting all the way up to 37.
"It's a tree, boss," Lester said. "You know, a Christmas tree. Christmas is Thursday, you know."
Steph peeked up again to see Ranger turn, ever so slowly, toward Lester. "I'm aware of the date."
Her heart sped up again. The counting hadn't helped. Shit, shit, shit.
"In my office, now," he said to Lester.
Lester turned to wink at her as he followed Ranger. The second the door closed behind them, every pair of eyes in the control room turned to her.
Steph threw her hands up in the air in a surrender pose. "Why are you looking at me?"
There were some chuckles, some head shakes, but everyone got back to work. Lester made it out of Ranger's office alive, and said, "Bobby, you're up next. Cal, you're on deck."
One by one, each Rangeman disappeared into Ranger's office, and reappeared shame-faced and pink.
"Don't worry," Lester whispered as he walked past her cubicle. "No one will rat you out."
She waited for her turn to face Ranger, tried to figure out what to say. Did she confess? Confess to the decorations, or the whole plan? Fling herself at him and demand to know why he didn't talk to her anymore? Act aloof, like she couldn't care less? Would he call her "Babe," in that voice she hadn't heard in so long, or just stare at her.
Her thumbnails got chewed to nothing while she waited. Hal, Manny, Woody, Hector, Skinny, and Ram all came out of his office. Apparently no one ratter her out, just as Lester had promised.
But he never called her into his office. At 4:49, he left his office, pushed the up button on the elevator, and disappeared without looking back.
--rs--
She'd planned to cancel phase three. She really had. After all, he'd been way more pissed than she'd thought he would be. But the point had been to get his attention, and all he'd done so far was ignore her. If the tree hadn't woken him up, then tinsel sure as hell would.
It was Christmas Eve and a half day for the office staff. She was at her desk by 7:30, just in case. She hadn't been this early to work since—well, ever.
She didn't have to wait long. He walked in, no shirt, dripping with sweat, at 7:34. Again, he froze. Tinsel covered every surface of the control room. Shiny and sparkly, it winked out from chairs and desks and the floor and computer monitors.
Ranger turned, unerringly, and locked eyes with her above the top of her padded wall.
Her stomach dropped to her feet, her breath froze in her lungs, and she could feel shameful heat flooding her face and neck.
Caught.
He stared, no expression on his face, for what felt like forever. She don't know what she had expected, but she'd wanted his attention.
Now she had it.
He tilted his head toward the elevator, and pushed the up button.
Shit, shit, shit. Her feet, mired in lead or fear or just plain panic, slowly moved her out of her cubicle and down the small aisle. The few Rangemen present all watched with varying degrees of pity. Hector gave her a grim smile and a thumbs up for encouragement. She couldn't work up the ability to return it.
By the time she made it to the elevator, Ranger had already gone up, and the elevator had returned for her. Great. She got in, and debated pushing "G" for the garage and just bolting. But he'd just track her down, and besides, hadn't this been the whole point? Punishment?
Christ, she had to start thinking things all the way through before doing them.
By the time she made it to the door of his apartment, she was so scared her teeth were chattering.
She knocked twice on the door – her thudding heart remembering a day when she didn't have to knock at all – opened in, and stuck her head in.
Ranger stood in the middle of the living room, arms crossed. Waiting. "Come in, Stephanie."
Shit, shit, shit. Knees shaking, she took slow steps into the room, stopping a good ten feet away from him.
"You arranged for security footage to be doctored three nights in a row?"
Confess? Deny? Who was she kidding – he already knew. She tried to say yes, and when all that came out was a squeak, simply nodded her head.
"You took men off their assigned duties and had them lie to me."
Again, she nodded.
His voice never rose, just continued at that same steady pace. Firm. Calculating. Terrifying. "You broke countless company policies and endangered the security of this entire organization."
"Now wait," she said. "I think you're overreacting. I only—"
He took a quick step toward her, and finally, his voice went up. "I'm overreacting?
She gulped and backpedaled—fast. "It was a joke! It's Christmas!"
His face hardened. "You're fired, Stephanie. Pack up your desk."
"What? No! I just, I just wanted—" She'd just wanted things to go back to the way they'd been before. Back to when they were friends. When he'd talked to her and kissed her and told her he loved her and tried to make arrogant passes at her.
To her complete mortification, she felt hot, humiliated tears prick behind her eyes.
His expression didn't change. "You wanted what, exactly?"
She looked at him, at the dark eyes, the expressionless face. And she knew—she'd never see any of it again. It was over. Whatever their odd relationship had been over the years, they didn't have one any longer. Whatever had happened in Miami two months, one week and four days ago—it'd ended everything between them.
She could feel the tears starting, and refused – refused – to shed them in front of him. Instead, she cleared her throat, said, "I'll pack up my desk," and turned away.
He caught her arm as she reached for the door handle. His fingers skimmed across her arm, paused, then dug into her flesh to keep her from leaving. "What did you want?" he said, his voice soft.
There were a number of things she could say, she realized. Some would save her pride, others would bare her soul. She settled for the one thing she needed to know. "What happened in Miami?"
She kept her back to him, but it didn't matter. He didn't answer. His fingers slipped away from her arm and she walked out the door.
Two steps into the hallway, she heard him behind her, his voice low and gruff. "Rachel filed to change our custody agreement. No visitation. No contact."
She paused, mid-step, but didn't turn back. "Isn't that what you wanted? No emotional investment?"
"It was."
He said it as if he'd changed his mind. As if it was no longer what he wanted. Which had absolutely nothing to do with her. She focused on the elevator ten feet in front of her. Took one step. Two.
"Her reasoning," Ranger said, making her stop again, eight feet from the elevator now, "was that the next person to use Julie to get to me might succeed. And if he didn't, the next person would." He cleared his throat. "And she's right. Anyone near me is fair game. And eventually, it'll work."
And so he'd neatly, calmly, without a word, cast her out of his life. Her heart tightened, an aching sensation that only intensified as the silence stretched between them. Her head throbbed from the effort of holding back tears.
"I love you, Stephanie. You know that."
She stared at the smooth, glassy steel doors of the elevator. Suddenly, it wasn't just her heart that ached. It was her entire body. Her heart and her chest and her legs and even the palms of her hands.
"I just want you safe."
The ache splintered, broke away—and left behind cold, crystal-clear fury. "That's very noble of you, Ranger," she spat out. She spun around and marched toward him. "You decide and that's it. No discussion. You can't even be bothered to tell me. You love me, but not enough to speak to me."
"It's not like that—"
Another step brought them nose to nose, her still standing on the step in the foyer, him on the floor. She shoved against his chest, hard, though it accomplished nothing. "It's always like that! There's always a second half to that statement. You love me, but not enough to be in a relationship with me. You love me, but in your own way, which apparently means a shitty way. You love me, but you want me safe."
"Babe—"
"Don't babe me!" She shoved him again, harder. Still nothing. "You didn't even have the decency to tell me—"
"Steph—"
"I set up this whole thing just so you would speak to me again and you talk to everybody except me—"
"Stephanie!"
"And when you do deign to speak to me, this is the bullshit you try to feed me? Why can't you be honest? You don't love me. Not enough. Not like I love—" She stopped, belatedly realizing what she almost spit out, and with a horrified, humiliated, outraged yell, lunged at him.
This time he reacted. He grabbed her wrists, wrenched them behind her back, and pulled her body flush with his, effectively trapping her within his arms. "Babe."
She struggled against his hold, but there was no escape. No way out now, and if she'd wanted to piss him off before—well she'd managed to do so now. She stared at her toes in an effort to control her racing heart and ragged breath, and finally looked up at him.
The corners of his mouth tilted up in an amused smile. "You did all that to get me to talk to you?"
"Well I had to do something!"
He sighed and shifted his arms, let go of her wrists, so he embraced her rather than trapped her. She tilted forward to lean against him.
"I just want you safe," he said.
She leaned closer, rested her head on his shoulder, the fight drained out of her. "Enough to send me away?"
He tightened his arms around her, but didn't answer. Her heart tripped, then galloped ahead at full speed. Somewhere in the still, dim apartment a clock ticked, slow and steady and counting up every second that he didn't answer. She'd just decided to disentangle herself from his arms and leave when he buried his face in her hair.
"I was going to say something to you," he said softly. "That night before I left. But I didn't and then I told myself I would tell you as soon as I got back."
She leaned back far enough to be able to see his face. "Tell me what?"
"That I love you."
She sighed and put her head back on her shoulder. She braced herself and said, "And."
With his fingers on the underside of her chin, he lifted her head and touched his lips to hers. Brief, gentle. So tender she knew his next words would be, but not enough.
She edged back and glared at him. "You didn't finish."
Though his face remained serious, he lifted one shoulder in a shrug and said, "Nothing else to say." He shrugged again. "You're right."
She leaned back farther. "About what?
"That there was always a second half. There's not now."
"Which means what?"
"It means I love you. You love me. Stay for Christmas. We'll eat good food, visit families, make love, see where this goes."
She leaned back toward him. "I like this. So my plan worked."
"You're plan worked," he said. "But you're still fired."
--rs--
the end