Hi, thanks for clicking on my story. I've got the writing bug again so I decided to roll with it. Actually, you can blame CyborgWithGreatHair - she's currently writing my favorite in progress story, Sink or Swim, in which Bobby is infinitely more likeable than he is here. Her pesky obligations are getting in the way of updates (anyone want to stark a GoFundMe so she can write full-time?) so I started thinking about what would happen if Bobby was less lovable than he was in her story? This is what I came up with. Hope you enjoy.

BPOV

I stand from my cramped seat on the airplane as the captain turns off the 'fasten seatbelts' sign, wincing as my spine shifts into alignment and my calf muscles protest. It is, frankly, a welcome distraction – although this trip home has consumed my thoughts for the better part of a year, the past week of worry has planted an ever-growing ball of unease in my gut.

I deplane along with 150 other travelers and we make our way en masse toward the luggage carousel. As we shuffle along, I keep an eye out for a familiar face or a signature black uniform but I don't see anyone from Rangeman; it's odd, generally there's a pickup waiting for one of us whenever we return home. I don't really have time to dwell on it though, since the luggage carousel comes to life and starts spitting bags onto the belt. I spot my green army duffle relatively early but still haven't managed to find a Rangeman envoy anywhere. Great.

Begrudgingly, I step to the side and start digging through the pockets of my bag in search of my cell to call the office when I feel a tap on my shoulder. I look up…and up and up at the wall of black-clad muscle in front of me.

"Bobby Brown?" an unfamiliar voice grunts at me as I finally reach his face. He's Rangeman, all right – he's got the blank face down. He's also got blazing red hair and is the size of a well-fed ox, and he's frowning into his nearly non-existent neck as he sizes me up. I know he's been sent here to pick me up; what I don't know is why.

"Where's Ric?" I ask before I think better of it. "Ranger," I immediately correct myself, "where's Ranger? Or Tank or Les? I was expecting someone from the Core Team to pick me up. It's pretty standard…" I trail off since I realize I'm rambling and coming off as more than a little odd.

The ox just shrugs and gestures with a role of his bulbous head that I should follow. "Dunno," he grunts, maneuvering us toward the exit. "Ranger says to pick a guy up, I pick 'em up." He pauses long enough to extend one meaty hand and offer a quick, "Name's Angus," before continuing his shuffle toward freedom.

There's little for me to do but follow behind him. I'm confused, and if I'm completely honest, a bit hurt…but then again, part of me has expected a cool reception. The absence of any of the Core Team is telling.

I load by duffle into the back of the black Rangeman SUB and settle in while Ox – okay, Angus – jumps on the 95 headed south toward Trenton. My thoughts are dark, swirling, and something I'd just as soon not dwell on. I've had very little contact with Trenton in 17 months, all of it superficial, and I'd really like to know what I'm walking into. And since I happen to be sharing a vehicle with someone who has been in constant contact with Trenton, I decide to try my luck.

"So, Angus, how long have you been with Rangeman?"

He offers only a "Two months," before falling silent again. I can't help but raise an eyebrow; two months? The guy was probably not even proficient with a gun at this point, and this was who they sent to pick me up? Still, in for a penny, in for a pound…

"Ah. So you'll have met all the guys, then. Are they all still there? Cal, Hector, Junior…I'm guessing Bones took over as medic while I was gone?"

"Yessir," is the only response I get. It occurs to me that this guy may have been handpicked to retrieve me from the airport; he's good at not talking, which means no one had to worry about him oversharing with me. I decide to let it alone and turn to stare out the window at the landscape flying by.

It wasn't that I'd expected a parade when I returned; shit, no. In fact, I think I've grown pretty accustomed to the idea that the exact opposite would be waiting for me when I came back. At the very least, I expected to have a new hole chewed in my ass, maybe a few rounds on the mats with his boss before the guys would accept my return to ranks. But really…really, if was entirely genuine with myself, I think I'd known for a while now that I was fooling myself. I graduated early and with honors, I've successfully infiltrated some of the most stringently guarded places on earth: I'm not an egomaniac, but I can say with confidence that I'm a smart man. Smart men don't believe in the Easter Bunny or Santa Clause, and they don't go believing that everything that happened would be forgotten after a hard session in the gym. No, a smart man would figure out that he'd be lucky if someone called an ambulance to save his sorry ass after his team was through with him.

With a jolt, I realize we're slowing down to exit the freeway. I hastily pull myself out of my sulk as the sign welcoming me to Trenton looms overhead. Funnily enough, it's never looked less welcoming than it does right now.

The parking garage at Rangeman is eerily quiet as walk toward the elevator doors, closely following the lumbering Angus. I no longer have a working badge for Rangeman, Trenton, so I'm completely at his mercy - a fact that only serves to increase my unease. It's unsettling to gauge how uncomfortable I actually am right now; this place has been my home since we started the business together years ago. It's my home, the only one I've ever really had, and I'm sick with apprehension to be here. Angus and I climb aboard the elevator and ride in silence to the control floor and I find myself bracing… for greetings or for an assault, I'm not really sure.

As it happens, my trepidation is in vain – I get neither. As the doors slide silently open, my only greeting is the curious glance of the Rangeman manning the desk. His face is as new to me as Angus' had been an hour earlier. I quickly scan the room, covertly hoping to see a familiar face, but I'm quickly disappointed; there's no one lounging or bustling about the lobby, an oddity considering the men who work here do as much gossiping as they do work.

I try to ignore the faint pang of disappointment I feel; I guess no matter how old you get, being shunned is never a good feeling. Instead, I reach out and grasp Angus's hand, give it a quick shake and murmur my gratitude for the ride and walk with a confidence I don't feel toward the control desk.

"Bobby Brown," I say by way of introduction to the Rangeman manning the control station. This man, I know, would've been at Rangeman longer than the two months Angus boasted; Standard Operating Procedures stated that you couldn't man the desk alone until you've passed your six month assessment. At any rate, knowing the way the guys around here gossiped, he'd been around long enough to have heard at least some of the story of my departure.

My suspicions are confirmed by the tight-lipped grimace New Guy flashes me in greeting. He says nothing, only holding up a single finger at me while he fishes a security badge – a temporary one, I note wryly – from the box kept beneath the desk. He quickly programs it for me and passes it across the counter along with a folded note. His task completed, he turned back to the monitors, effectively dismissing me.

If I wasn't so seasoned at maintaining a calm exterior, I would cheerfully give in to my baser urges and training and make the little shit eat the card he'd deigned to hand over a moment ago; as it is, I have bigger fish to fry, so I simply grind my teeth together and flip open the paper New Guy had passed along. It reads, simply, 'My office' in Ranger's distinctive cramped scrawl.

"Oh, now he wants to see me," I grumble under my breath, turning toward Ranger's office. I decide to leave my duffle by the control desk. If New Guy doesn't like it, New Guy can just eat a box of dicks.

That image cheers me, however briefly, and I use it to fuel my walk to Ric's office. I welcome the distraction. This isn't the specific conversation I've been dreading, but it's not one I'm eager to have, either.

It takes less a minute to find myself outside Ric's office. When a muffled, "Enter," comes seconds after my quick knock, I pull my shoulders back, suck in a quick fortifying breath and entered the lion's den.

Ranger hasn't changed at all in the 17 months since I last saw him. Still taciturn as ever, he exudes a quiet confidence and cool steadfastness that has always been (and still is) impossible to emulate. His unflinching stare has the ability to compel its recipient to confess their deepest secrets with nary a word spoken, and right now, those eyes are trained on me.

The silence is thick in the room as the we regard each other, speculating, assessing. It's a…unique situation, to say the least. Two tours of active duty, an additional four years working covertly with Ric, Les, and Tank, and the steel nerves I had to develop to work in the security industry is not an environment where weakness and nerves thrive. I've witnessed, up close and personal, things that would reduce most men to quivering masses of tears and terror and I walked out the other side with little more than a scratch to show for it. We have been trained and conditioned by the handlers our government assigned us to disregard useless emotions like worry or dread…but if I'm being honest, Ranger is the partner I've been most apprehensive about meeting with again. And from the looks of things, he wasn't partner planning to make this initial meeting painless.

Resigned to my fate, I sigh and hold my hands up in surrender. I move to take a seat in front of Ranger's desk and bow my head, trying to get my bearings and gauge how to best navigate this conversation. I open my mouth but before I can begin, Ranger speaks.

"Here," he says, tossing a manila folder across his desk toward me. It slides to a stop a millimeter from the edge, and I take a second to marvel (not for the first time) at the odd and random skill sets Ranger possesses.

My faint sense of amusement is squashed flat by the contents of the folder.

"What the fuck is this, Ric?" I hiss as my eyes furiously eat through the text of the contract he'd been presented with. "You're firing me?!"

"Relocating, actually." Ranger corrects me, smooth as silk. He opens his mouth to continue but I cut him off, fury making my face flame.

"Fuck that, you arrogant prick! You do realize that I'm your partner, not your fucking lackey, right? I don't work for you, Manoso, you have no- "

Ranger cuts md off, holding up one hand to silence my ranting and pissing me off further. "It's not an order, Brown. It's an offer. You get to go back to the Atlanta office, permanently. You'll retain the salary, the percentage in Rangeman, position, everything. Antonio has been making noise for a couple of years now about retiring, you could be next in line to run that office. Something to think about." With that, he leans back in his chair, calm as you please, and fixes that damnable stare on me.

I can't help but regard him with thinly veiled suspicion; he's caught me off guard and he knows it. I suspect that was his intention, however, bringing the fact to his attention won't help my cause in the least. Instead, I give voice to my jumbled thoughts. "Why now? Why didn't you offer me this when I was in Atlanta? Hell, for that matter, why hasn't this been on the table at any point in the last 17 months?!"

My rant is met with silence. We sit together, silently assessing each other, one of us moderately hostile, the other mildly disinterested, for several tedious minutes. Finally, Ranger lets out a barely perceptible sigh before answering.

"We thought it would be best for everyone."

"We?" I intone, frowning. "We, who? What…you, Tank and Les?"

Ric fixes his steely cool stare at me and answers with two words: "And Stephanie."

At that I can't help but wince and drop my eyes to my lap. There's nothing, not a goddamn thing I can think to say in rebuttal, so instead painstakingly arrange the papers back into the folder they'd come in. I know without needing to hear it from Ric that we're done here, so I stand slowly. I'm no longer in a rush to reacquaint myself with my home office, but before I leave his office there's one thing I have to ask. Though I know it's cowardly, I can't help but softly ask, "Is she…how is she?"

In an instant, Ranger's passive demeanor changes; he looks at me with nothing short of contempt, his wordless warning clear: drop it.

"Your apartment was filled after you decided to extend your visit to Atlanta," he answers, deliberately ignoring my half-hearted question. "Ella set up a temporary room for you in the second patient room off the infirmary. All your personal stuff was boxed up, it's in a locked storage unit in the basement." Here he pauses while reaching for a keyring with two keys attached. He offers it to me as he comes around his desk to hold open his office door. I recognize it as a dismissal and follow Ranger to the hallway without speaking again.

Once we're clear of his office, Ranger shuts the door and turns to continue speaking. "Your security pass is set at your usual clearance. Bones has taken over medic duties, and we'll figure out what to do about that after you've given our proposal some thought and made a decision. In the meantime, you're off rotation until we can rework the schedule."

Ranger stops speaking and looks at me then, raising one eyebrow in question. There is absolutely nothing I could ask, nothing that would salvage this conversation, so I simply nod and turn on my heel to head toward the infirmary.

My thoughts turn sour and self-pitying. Geez, talk about 'unwelcome'… Ranger couldn't have been more clear that he'd prefer it if I make my tenure in Atlanta permanent. I had certainly expected some blowback; hell, I wholly believed I'd deserved it and had prepared myself for the eventuality that I'd be met with a heave degree of difficulty re-immersing myself in Trenton… I guess I just hadn't considered that my absence would've caused things to change so drastically.

And permanently, it seems…

As I make my way down to the infirmary, I find myself simultaneously dreading and longing for the happenstance of running into any one of my old colleagues; despite the frosty reception I'd gotten so far, I'd returned home because I was homesick. When I reached the infirmary and that hope didn't materialize, I cross my fingers and open the door to the patient room, hoping it was somehow bigger than I remember.

Strike two, I think grimly as I take in the sparsely outfitted room. It was meant for short patient stays, not a live-in guest, and while Ella was generally a domestic goddess, I have a sneaking suspicion she hadn't put too much effort into making this space homey for me.

I enter the room and shut the door behind me before flopping onto the bed and reflecting on my current situation. I can't help but feel more than a little sorry for myself before I immediately feel loathsome for my self-pity. I've had warmer receptions while infiltrating enemy camps, I think sourly, tucking my hands behind my head and letting my mind wander.

Atlanta, though beautiful, wasn't home. And while The Big Peach had much to offer, I had felt the pull of New Jersey from the moment I'd disembarked from the plane that took me to Georgia.

Now, here in this room in the bowels of Rangeman, Trenton, it's painfully, pathetically obvious to me at this point that the sense of peace that comes with being home is not going to come…and truth be told, I'm pretty sure I don't deserve it, anyway.

You don't even know what happened after you left, a small voice inside my head whispers. It could all be a moot point anyway…

With a groan, I turned over, bury head beneath my pillow, and offer a silent prayer of thanks for the soundless oblivion I fall into; here, at least, there is peace.