A/N: It's been a while since I've seen Lethal Weapon 4 and I don't remember if they named Rianne and Lee's baby at the end of the movie or not, if so I apologize for the error in character naming. All standard disclaimers apply. Hope you enjoy, please read and review.
Déjà Vu
In 1998, Captain Roger Murtaugh's daughter, and Detective Lee Butters' wife, Rianne, gave birth to a baby girl. On the same day, Captain Martin Riggs's wife, Lorna Cole, gave birth to a baby boy.
2 years later, Martin Riggs and Lorna Cole welcomed a baby girl into the world.
It was another sunny morning in the city of Los Angeles, home to nearly 4 million people and counting. Everybody had places to be and things to do, some of them less than willingly.
Angel Riggs sat on the hood of her car in the driveway and watched the traffic go by. She was 19, tall like her father, had wild blonde hair that she hadn't inherited from either parent, and was dressed for the day in a faded white tank top, black pants, and a pair of black chukka boots that 20 years ago had belonged to her father, and to his horror, she could now fit just as well.
She'd just barely returned from a drag race out to Las Vegas and back the night before, but she'd been running her car around the roads of California long enough to know the left front tire was going to burst at the first sharp object on the street she drove over. So instead, today Traci Butters, her friend for most of her life and partner in crime so to speak, was coming over to take her to a dentist appointment. She was running late.
Behind her, Angel heard the door slam. A minute later her father came over to the car and asked her, "What time's your appointment?"
It was inevitable that time took its toll on all people, and Martin Riggs had been no exception. He was a little heavier than he was in his heyday, his hair had gradually been graying out for years, and even he'd been forced to admit he was a little too old to be tossed around a bar fight like a beer pong ball, but still he had a few years to go before his retirement from LAPD. Roger on the other hand had retired five years after his granddaughter's birth. This had done nothing to slow down the two cops' interaction with each other, the two families had been as close as blood when their children were born almost 21 years earlier.
"Nine," Angel answered with a roll of her eyes, "Just how I wanted to spend my morning, an hour in the damn dentist chair while some quack with a pair of pliers rips out my wisdom teeth."
Riggs was amused by this and he asked his daughter, "So why're you doing it?"
Hardly missing a beat, she answered, "Because I can't reach to take them out myself. I tried."
Riggs got out a good laugh at that.
"Traci's always on my back about being on time, and now she's late, I don't get it," Angel told her father.
"Oh I'm sure she has a good reason," Martin directed his attention to a faraway sound of screeching rubber and looked down the street, "I think she's coming now."
They both looked and were able to see an old black sedan turn a corner several blocks down and move onto their street. It came tearing up the road at probably 50 miles an hour, the tires smoking as the car sped along, and as it neared their block, both Riggs's would swear they could hear a high pitched scream accompanying the roar of the engine and the squeal of the tires. A few seconds later they saw they were right as there was a passenger in the car, Lee Butters, Traci's father, whose head was leaning out of the window and thrown back in a long scream of terror. Traci, Roger Murtaugh's first granddaughter, hit the brakes so hard they both nearly went through the windshield as the sedan came to an abrupt halt at the curb.
"Oh Lord!" Butters exclaimed as he collapsed back in his seat and clutched his chest, "The state that gives a driver's license to this girl!"
Angel scooted off the hood of her car and she and her father went over to meet with Traci and her father.
"Hey Lee," Riggs said as he opened the passenger door for the man, "What's the word?"
Lee all but fell out of the car as he got out of his seat, and hanging onto the open door for support, answered, "FUCK, that's the word, Riggs." He pointed an accusing finger at the driver of the car and continued, "This sick, crazy, depraved lady, has replaced my daughter. Invasion of the Body Snatchers type shit, you know what I'm saying?"
Angel went over to the driver's side of the car and stuck her head in the window. Traci just sat back in her seat and laughed at her father's expense. Like Angel, Traci had inherited her father's height, and had her seat pushed back to accommodate her near 6 foot tall frame, much of it taken up by her long jean clad legs. She'd also inherited her mother's good looks once upon a time, which had been replaced with a harder chiseled appearance from years of physical training to prepare for her intended future on the police force to carry on the family tradition. Her birthday was a month away and as soon as she was 21 she was determined to join the academy. Angel planned to do the same in 2 years when she was also of age.
"Well?" Angel said.
Traci was able to compose herself and explained, "We were talking about it'd save time if we both came over together so my dad and your dad could ride together to work and we could get the hell out of here, so…"
Lee was still not done with his tirade to Riggs. He'd been giving the senior cop a play by play, sound effects included, of the kamikaze ride from point A to point B.
"I know that ain't my genes in there!" Lee told Martin, and turned back towards the car, "Call up Maury, I want a damn paternity test, no daughter of mine drives across the city on a suicide junket like a bat outta hell!"
Riggs couldn't resist asking Lee, "Didn't you go with her to get her driver's license?"
"Hell no, her mama went with her," Butters answered, "Had I known that this psychotic would be unleashed upon the streets of Los Angeles, I would've marched down to the damn DMV and told them 'oh hell no, tear dat license up, let her take the bus and save everybody's lives' She gonna kill us all!"
Traci was still having a good laugh at her father's expense. She leaned out the window and called over to him, "Love you too, Dad." She turned to Rigg's daughter and asked, "Well, you ready to go?"
"I got a choice?" Angel asked, then walked around to shotgun and climbed in the window. "Let's get this over with."
"Would you stop doing that?" Traci could be heard yelling at Angel as they tore out of the driveway.
Two hours later they were back in Traci's car on their way home. Traci looked over at her passenger and saw Angel had her feet on the dashboard, her head slumped down, and saw by the motion of her cheeks that she was sucking on the gauze pads in her mouth.
"Well?" was the first word either of them had said since they left the dentist's office.
"Weh whah?" Angel asked.
"You feeling anything yet?" Traci asked.
"Neh," Angel shook her head and poked her jaw line, "Stih numb, see?" She turned to her best friend and told her, "I though' when you had four teef taken out they put you to slehp."
Traci shook her head, "That's only if you get it done in a hospital, actual dental surgery, otherwise they just numb you out and start yanking."
"Yankin', yeh," Angel turned to the window and spat out the bloody gauze, "If I ever see that butcher again, I'm gonna bite him with the teeth I have left."
"Would you stop doing that?" Traci asked, "It's disgusting."
"There's no place to put them," Angel replied as she took new gauze out of a plastic cup the dentist had given her, "And he said to change them every 15 minutes."
"I swear, Riggs, if I get a ticket for littering because you keep chucking your bloody gauze out the window, I'm going to kick your ass," Traci told her.
"I'd like to see you try," Angel responded.
"Oh yeah?"
"Hey!" Angel pointed to something up ahead, "What's that?"
Traci turned her attention back to the road and hit the brakes. Up ahead the street was jam packed with police cars, fire trucks, ambulances, TV news vans, and a bunch of spectators. They all seemed to be crowding around a building up the street. Angel leaned forward in her seat to see what the commotion was about.
"Is there someone up on the ledge?" she asked.
Traci hunkered down in her seat and looked up. In the late morning sunlight she was able to make out a figure standing on the roof of a 10 story building.
"Oh shit," Traci murmured.
Angel reached into the glove box and took out a fake police badge and clipped it to her belt. "Come on, let's check it out."
"You're nuts, Riggs," Traci said.
"You have no idea how many times I've heard that," Angel said as she got out of the car.
Traci had a bad feeling about it but she also got out of the car and followed Angel past the police cordons and past the onlookers trying to get a closer glimpse of the action.
Angel flashed he badge quickly to the uniforms on the scene, "Detective Riggs," she pointed a finger towards Traci, "Detective Butters, what the hell's going on here?"
"Guy wants to jump," one of the young rookies answered.
"What the hell for?" Traci asked.
"Who knows?" the other asked, "Who knows why any son of a bitch does it?"
"Where's the roof access?" Angel asked.
"Northwest corner of the top floor," the first cop answered, "We're waiting on the shrink to get here to try and talk him down."
"We're authorized," Angel told them and gestured to Traci, "Let's go."
Traci closed the gap between them and reminded Angel, "We're not authorized to do anything, we haven't been cleared."
"I'm clearing myself, let's go," Angel told her, "I've got an idea."
That was a dangerous sentiment at any time, and Traci knew that from previous experience of knowing Angel since she was born.
"Riggs, I am not going up there," she stood her ground, "Whatever you got in mind, I want no part of."
Angel paused for a beat to take this in, and she asked in a half nonchalant, half surprised tone, "You don't want to go?"
"No!"
"Alright then," Angel could respect that, she certainly wasn't going to force Traci to go along with her plan. Instead she went back to the uniforms and started to speak to one, then she shocked him by squeezing his bicep through his uniform. She stepped to the second man, squeezed his arm as well and told him, "You'll do, follow me, I'll give the layout of what we're going to try."
Traci watched the cop walk towards the back of the building with Angel, and she ran back to her car, got her cell phone and speed dialed the one person most qualified to take this call.
"Grandpa? It's Traci," she said as she looked back towards the building, "I think we have a big problem."
"Ten stories up and the elevator's out," Angel grunted as she finally reached the top floor, and said to the cop behind her, "What the hell does this guy want to jump for? After the trip it took to get up here, he should've collapsed from a heart attack!"
"You said you were qualified for this?" the cop inquired.
"I said I'm authorized," Angel told him, "Just let me do the talking, you stay out of sight, and when he starts screaming, you grab him and haul him down."
"That's all he's been doing since we got here," the cop responded.
"Trust me, you'll know when it's time," Angel said as she headed across the hall to the roof access door, "You're gonna see and hear some really freaky shit out there, but trust me, it's all part of the routine, nothing to worry about. I'm going to try a new method of reverse psychology on this guy, we're seeing amazing results with it."
"Okay, Detective."
Detective, she liked that. One day it was going to be a reality. She was going to be a cop just like her dad, just like Traci was going to be a cop just like her dad and her granddad. They both had quite a legacy to compete with, but the way Angel saw it, she already had a head start. She looked down and grinned to herself, she was already filling her father's boots.
Sucking in a breath, Angel opened the door and surveyed the rooftop, making sure that there wasn't anybody else up there except the guy screaming his head off at the people down below. No surprises. Satisfied that they were as alone as they were going to be, she slowly started to make her way across the roof and over towards the ledge.
Hell. How to open up a conversation like this? If you took him too off guard he'd probably just fall off the ledge from the confusion alone. So that eliminated any yelling at the guy, and definitely eliminated sneaking up behind him and poking him on the shoulder or yelling 'Boo!'. Halfway across she raised her voice just enough that she might be heard. "Excuse me? Hello."
The guy flipped around and Angel noted he looked about 30, short dark hair, two rings in one ear, torn jeans, dirty shirt, moderately worn sneakers.
"Get the hell back!" he yelled at her, "Or I'll jump!"
Already it wasn't working out quite like she figured. She should've waited until she was three quarters across before making him aware of her presence. It didn't matter now. Taking large strides, she closed the gap between them, despite his high pitched protests.
Two cars rushed onto the scene and pulled up a few yards away from Traci's car. Roger Murtaugh, in his early 80s and gray, but still looked like he was in his 60s and still moved like he was in his 70s, got out of one, and Martin and her dad got out of the other. Traci was seated on the hood of her car looking up at the rooftop of the building while she took a sandwich out of a paper bag and bit into it.
"What's going on?" Roger asked as they came over to her.
"Guy on the roof says he's gonna jump," Traci answered, never taking her eyes off the building in question, "Nobody seems sure why."
"Where's Angel?" Riggs asked.
"Up there somewhere," Traci pointed almost nonchalantly.
"And what're you doing?" her dad asked.
"Eating her lunch," she answered, and when they looked at her she explained, "She just had four teeth taken out, she doesn't need it."
"How the hell did she get up there?" Riggs wanted to know.
"You tell me and we'll all know, Uncle Martin," she answered, "She got a couple of rookies who don't know anything and they believed her when she said we were authorized."
"But you didn't go up with her?" Lee asked.
She rolled her eyes, "Give me a break, Dad, I may be a lot of things, but crazy ain't one of them."
"Well where's she now?" Riggs wanted to know.
"I don't know," Traci said, "They said something about the elevator being out."
"She say anything about what she's going to do?" Murtaugh asked.
"No, Grandpa," Traci answered, "But I've known her long enough to know whatever it is, it's nothing good."
A minute later they saw a second figure up on the roof.
"Oh my God, there she is," Traci jumped up from the hood. Then everybody was scrambling to get a closer look at the activity on the top of the building.
"What the hell's she doing?" Riggs asked.
"Don't come any closer or I'm gonna jump!" the man told Angel.
Instead however, she moved right over towards the ledge beside him and told him, "Fuck you, man, I'm jumping."
This took the man completely by surprise and he didn't even know how to process what she said. So she tried again and gave him a half hearted shove back. "Get out of the way, I'm jumping."
Finally the man recovered from the shock and told her, "Fuck you, lady, I'm jumping."
"I'm jumping," she replied, "You think you're the only one that got problems?"
He started to get defensive, "Fuck you, lady, you don't know anything about me."
"Yeah and you don't know nothing about me either," she said, "Let me tell you about the day I've had. The engine in my car explodes, I'm late to work, my boss chews my ass out, I get fired, I've got two mortgages, my boyfriend left me for my mother, they canceled Monday night wrestling, I'm jumping off this ledge, get out of my way."
"Don't come another step closer, or I'm gonna jump!" he told her, "I'm not kidding."
"Forget it," Angel told him, "I'm not having my death upstaged by your worthless ass, I'm jumping."
"No you're not!" he responded, "You get back!"
"You get back," she told him, "I've been looking all morning for the perfect spot to jump from and this is it, now get out of my way."
But the man wasn't budging, and he was adamant about it.
"Fuck you, lady, I was here first, and I ain't moving!"
Angel stood and looked at him for a few seconds, then without warning she reached into the waistband of her pants and took out a semi-automatic pistol and pointed it straight at him.
"You think so?" she asked him as she maintained a death grip on the handle, "Now get back!"
Instantly, the man had his hands high in the air and did as he was told and took a few steps back. "Hey, hey!" he screamed, "What the hell are you doing with that?"
"You want to jump, right, you want to die?" Angel asked, "Then what difference does it make to you how it's done?" She set her sights straight on his chest and told him, "I can spatter your heart right here and save everybody down below the gory sight."
"Fucker!" the man screamed at her in a weak defiance, "Put that down!"
"I told you that I'm jumping," Angel told him, "Or maybe I'll just do one better right here and now." Quick as a flash she turned the gun around and stuck the muzzle of it in her mouth.
It was obvious that this man, whoever he was, whatever he was, had not anticipated anybody else coming up on the roof, let alone anything like this, and it showed. The conviction he had scared everybody back with was gone and his face was scrunched up in a grimace of dread as he started sputtering, "Aww no, don't, don't do it, shit!"
Angel's thumb slowly went for the trigger, but then at the last second she took the gun out of her mouth and shook her head.
"No, I've got it," she said, "This time I've really got it." She raised the gun again, pointed it between her stomach and her ribs, right underneath her chest, and she took a step backwards toward the ledge.
"This is gonna be the last thing you see before you jump, pal, I hope you enjoy the view," she said.
With hardly a flinch, Angel pulled the trigger.
BANG
Blood spewed out of Angel's mouth and she fell back from the force of the shot and fell off the ledge of the roof and plummeted towards the street below.
"OH MY GOD!" the would-be jumper screamed at the top of his lungs as he watched her lifeless body disappear from his view.
The cop who had accompanied Angel to the roof came up behind the man and grabbed him, bodily pulling him away from the ledge.
"Oh my God!" Roger groaned as they watched the scene unfold from where they stood in the street.
Angel fell one story, two, three, four, and finally came to an abrupt stop as her body slammed onto the giant air bag the fire department had inflated on the ground below. The bag flattened out and the firemen came over to remove her from it. She surprised almost everybody there by standing up of her own volition, and she still clutched the gun in her hand. She looked up to the commotion taking place on the roof, and she said to nobody in particular, "Well that was fun, can we do it again?"
Her dad was the first one to her.
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," she answered, "I said he'd know when the time was right."
"Riggs!"
Angel scarcely had time to turn around to see who was calling her before she felt somebody rush her and slam her skull and her back against the hood of a police car nearby. She looked up and saw Traci hovering over her, a death grip on her neck.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Murtaugh's granddaughter asked as she throttled Riggs's daughter against the hood of the cop car.
Angel grabbed Traci's hands with her own and dug her short nails into the flesh of her best friend's hands and told her, "Get your hands off, you're choking me!" as if that hadn't been the idea.
Traci backed up enough for Angel to sit up and scoot off of the car.
"What the hell were you thinking?" she demanded to know.
Angel gestured to the building and asked, "It worked, didn't it? He didn't jump, did he?"
"Riggs, I've known you for 19 years and in all that time I've seen you do some damn stupid stuff but this takes the cake!" Traci told her, "What the fuck were you thinking?"
"I was thinking that a guy who sees somebody else jump is hardly going to be more inclined to do it himself," Riggs's daughter explained, "It's always different when you see someone else in the same position. Besides, that was the whole idea of that air mattress, right? So if he jumped he wouldn't kill himself? So why would there be any more risk in me jumping?"
"Because you're a damn loony! That's why!" Traci said.
"It's still better I jump than him, right?" Angel asked.
"Actually it could've been possible for both of you—" Martin started to say before Roger elbowed him and shook his head. Martin shifted gears and asked his daughter, "How'd you even get clearance to go up there?"
Angel showed him her fake badge, "Nobody got a good look at it."
"Fake cop with a fake badge, pulls a gun on a suicidal person and fakes her own suicide," Roger commented, "This city's going to have lawsuits out its ass."
"But it wouldn't if the guy just splattered himself all over the street?" Angel asked, "How does that work?"
"We got enough pull with the brass I think we can make the worst of this go away," Riggs told his daughter, "But don't pull this shit again until you have a real badge of your own."
Angel knelt down beside the car and collected her gun she'd lost when Traci body slammed her.
"Captain Riggs," one of the young uniforms came over and gave a salute.
"I know you?" Martin asked.
"Patrolman Higgins, sir," he answered, "We're getting the scene secured, but we found blood on the rooftop. As far as we can tell, the would-be jumper didn't sustain any injuries."
Martin turned and looked to his daughter, who opened her mouth and drooled blood onto the pavement.
"I need more gauze," she said, "I've been swallowing this shit for 20 minutes."
"So how the hell did you make him think you shot yourself?" Lee asked.
"Easy, like this," Angel pulled the gun out, held it a few inches from her stomach and pulled the trigger.
BANG
Angel took a step back and her eyes rolled halfway into the back of her head but she quickly shook it off. The people surrounding her on the other hand all looked like they were about to pass out. Angel removed the magazine from her gun and answered, "Rubber bullets for riot control. Don't kill you, usually, but they fire the same and hurt like a bitch." She pulled up the front of her shirt and showed them the large purple bruise where the first bullet had actually grazed her at an angle along her abdomen and ribs. The second bullet had penetrated the skin, though hadn't lodged into the flesh, and she was starting to bleed.
"And where'd you get those?" Roger asked.
"That's classified," she answered as she lowered her shirt and handed her gun to her dad.
"Terrific," Traci sniped, "First I have to drive you to the dentist to get your teeth removed, now I gotta drive your crazy ass to the hospital because you just put another hole in your body." She smacked Angel upside the head and asked her, "Why didn't you just get your whole body pierced?"
"She working on it, baby," Lee told his daughter.
"So now what?" Roger asked.
"Now I tell the higher ups that the uniforms misunderstood, and that she was sent under Captain Riggs's orders," Martin explained to his friends.
"Think they'll buy it?"
"No, but they can't prove otherwise," Riggs answered, "And as much shit as we've done for this city, since nobody was hurt and nobody got killed, and Angel's the only one that got hurt, they'll probably agree to bury this." He looked at Roger and said, "It's what we do for our kids, right?"
Behind them the three men could hear the girls getting into Traci's car.
"Riggs, I swear to God, if you bleed all over my car, I'm going to kick your ass."
"Promises, promises."
"Don't you dare get blood on my upholstery."
"Just give me the fucking gauze, already, I got this."
"I ought to knock you out, then I know you couldn't start anymore trouble."
"Will you just watch the damn road, Traci?"
"Oh that's rich, the psychopath is worried about how I drive."
"No, I just want to know why you never let me drive."
"You got a fucking hole in your stomach, Riggs."
"Not now, anytime, why don't you ever let me drive?"
"Because unlike you, I don't plan on dying today, or any day."
Roger turned to Martin and asked him, "You suppose there really is something to what they say about genetics?"
Riggs just shrugged.