A/N: So I'm a huge R/S ff lurker and I heard this song and thought it was perfect for them as a quasi-couple…
A/N 2: A shout out LilyGhost and the great Beta ShelSueD! Don't own just borrowing for a little bit…
MAJOR A/N: I decided that this WILL be a series and it's called: The iPod Series.. This is Story #1 and each story will be a song based fic.
Say Something
Hummer246
She hit play on the iPod and listened as the recording began. When she had broken up with Joe eleven months ago she had thought that maybe she and Ranger would finally become the couple that their flirting and alley kisses promised they would be. But Ranger was in the wind for five months leaving her at loose ends. After thinking long and hard she asked Lester, Tank, and Ram to train her in Weapons, hand-to-hand, and take down techniques. She needed something to fill her time while Ranger was gone and she was alone.
Now, after six months of burning kisses and stealthy touches, the truth was becoming clear to her. He needed to step up make them real, or leave her alone. She couldn't do this back and forth BS anymore;it was slowly killing her.
She laid her head on her crossed arms and looked towards the kitchen while she sang along with the song that was her letter to him. She hoped he got what she was trying to express. She just could never get the words to flow like they did in her poetry.
It was an accident, this song. She had been picking up Mooner after he went FTA and her purse spilled all over the living room floor. Sally Sweet had come by looking for Dougie, who had told him of a sweet guitar that had "fallen" off the back of a truck. Sally had picked up her open journal and quickly read her poem about Ranger. Two days later, he'd called and asked her to come by because he had something for her.
He'd turned her poem into a song! To say she had been shocked was an understatement. Sally had even set it up with a friend of his that recorded demos and he talked her into singing it with him, playing the whole thing on piano.
This was her goodbye to the love of her life. It was the hardest thing she had ever done , leaving him.
She had received a job offer—believe it or not—from a bail bondsman in Nevada, which came with twice the percentage she was making now, medium to high bonds, and the chance to be in charge of her own crew. Basically, she was going to be calling the shots. But she found that Ranger's apathetic attitude towards their relationship —if you could even call it that—hampered her excitement about the job opportunity. But she was going anyway; she was moving across the United States to start over. No more Bombshell Bounty Hunter, no more Stephanie screw-ups, no more betting on blowing up cars.
Her life was starting over, and hopefully that meant she would be able to let Ranger go and meet a nice guy, with whom she could have an actual adult relationship. She dreamed of going out on dates and not as a distraction for a skip. She dreamed of going away on long weekends with a guy who cared about her because he wanted to get away to be together, not because someone was obsessed with her and turned into a stalker. Basically, she wanted what everyone else took for granted as a normal life.
Not whatever this was, this life that she had now. Stephanie finally figured that she wanted anything to change, she was the one who had to change it, and this was the first step was Ranger.
Ranger had gone to Boston to check on some —as he called them— minor problems and was supposed to be back on Friday. Her plane for Vegas was leaving at five-thirty in the morning on Tuesday. She figured if she hadn't heard from him by the following Friday that she had her answer.
Now the ball would be in his court. He could hit it back or let it go, and she had a feeling she knew what he was going to do with the ball and the racquet.
Ranger came in the door, tossed the keys in the dish on the table, and flipped through the mail that hadpiled up while he was gone. He threw all the junk mail in the trashcan and left what needed to go down to his office on the table. He turned to go into the kitchen and saw the iPod dock with a letter leaning against it on the bar.
He saw her handwriting on the envelope and the word play on the iPod.
Ranger's gut was tight at the sight; he knew that nothing good was going to come of this letter. Their relationship, or whatever you wanted to call it, had been strained the last month or so. He knew that he needed to tell her that he wanted to take the next step and make this a real relationship and have her move in with him, but he just hadn't had the chance to sit her down and talk to her. Between Rangman, Steph's training, and both of their FTAs there just hadn't been a chance.
He pulled it out and read about how she had received the job offer over five months ago. How she had waited to see if he was going to turn whatever they had into a real relationship. She had given up and left this for him along with her new cell phone number in case he wanted to call her.
He saw the letter was dated over two weeks ago. He sat it down on the counter and pressed play on the iPod.
Say something, I'm giving up on you And I am feeling so small And I will stumble and fall Say something, I'm giving up on you And I will swallow my pride Say something, I'm giving up on you Say something, I'm giving up on you
I'll be the one, if you want me to
Anywhere I would've followed you
Say something, I'm giving up on you
It was over my head
I know nothing at all
I'm still learning to love
Just starting to crawl
I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you
Anywhere I would've followed you
Say something, I'm giving up on you
You're the one that I love
And I'm saying goodbye
And I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you
And anywhere I would've followed you (Oh-oh-oh-oh)
Say something, I'm giving up on you
Say something...
The End?
Say Something: A Great Big World featuring Christina Aguilera
