This is set during and after Stella's date with Steve. As with practically everything I write, it hints at Charlie/Stella pairing. It also features Handsome Rob trying his hand at comforting, and a certain three drunken men. It's just a one shot, - so, enjoy! And please review it!
Sam
xx
Stella was sat opposite the man that she never wanted to have to see again. She hadn't even wanted to see him for the first time. Now, she was on a date with him! When did it end? All she wanted was revenge for her father's death; no, her father's murder. John Bridger had been a good man, he didn't deserve that Steve did to him. No one deserved that. Charming? Charlie expected her to be charming? To this creep? It was unthinkable. What did he think would come of this? Did he expect Steve to ask her on another date? Back to his place? Luckily, she knew that all she had to do was knock over her wine glass, and Charlie, Rob, Left-ear and Lyle would come out from their hiding places. Occassionally, over Steve's shoulder, she could see Charlie's back, which comforted her more. He kept checking over his shoulder, watching them, which made her feel better. At least they weren't expecting her to do this alone. They thought she was brave.
"I really can't imagine you doing that." Steve said to her in a curious and yet taunting voice which made her want to get up and leave already. No, Stella, you've got to stay put, for your father.
"What's that supposed to mean?" She asked him. Of course, she hadn't been abseiling down waterfalls, it was just something that she had made up for conversation. She had done a lot of that so far.
"Well, you don't really seem like the adventurous type." Steve told her. She wasn't really, she was just a simple girl, who loved her father, but had sure as hell found the strangest way to get revenge for him.
"Don't let the cable uniform, you know, throw you." Stella added. Mainly because it isn't mine, she thought to himself. After all, he thought he was having dinner with Becky from the NetCom cable, not Stella Bridger.
"I wasn't making assumptions." Steve threw in quickly.
"Well, I've made some assumptions about you." She said before she could stop herself.
"Oh really? And?" Steve said curiously.
She really had to hold herself back from saying what she really had assumed about him. She assumed that he was going to try and ask her out again at the end of the night. She assumed that he was taking her father's murder very lightly. She assumed that he still thought that Charlie and the others were all dead. "We're just going to have to wait and see." She said finally.
"Why wait, let's get the check, go back to my place - no assumptions..." He asked her. Her worst nightmare come to life - spending the night with Steve. She wouldn't do it even if he paid her all the gold he had.
"Not tonight. It's late I should go home." She said quickly, perhaps to quickly, and sure enough he was suspicious.
"What? Do you have a cable company cerfew?"
"No, but I've made some bad calls in the past." She explained. "We should take this maybe a little slower, y'know." That was probably the first thing she had said so far past 'hello' that had been true. She had some bad calls in the past. Heck, all women had, but she wasn't looking to add her fathers murderer to the bottom of that list.
"This lovely dinner, sparkling conversation, and you still don't trust me?" He asked her. God she was starting to hate the sound of his voice.
"Oh, I trust everyone. It's the devil inside them I don't trust."
Charlie, who had been listening to the conversation from his hiding place reading a menu, perked his head up. John's saying. Looking at Stella, who didn't catch his eye, she had maintained a certain cool about her, and obviously didn't realise how many times her father had said that to Steve. Charlie threw a panicky look at Rob, who had also heard it.
"That's an interesting saying. It's charming, where'd you pick that up?" He was onto her. Charlie felt like ramming his head into the wall.
"Can't remember." She backtracked skillfully. Of course she remembered, her Dad only said it about a hundred times a day.
"Really? I knew I guy who said it exactly like that?" Steve said with amazement.
"Really?" She asked, hoping that he would go into a long winded story about some friend that she didn't know and would forget she ever said it.
"Yeah, he's the only person I've ever heard say that, he said it all the time. His name was John Bridger."
Quick as a flash, Steve reached out and grabbed Stella's wrist. Holding it tightly, she winced as his fingers formed a vice like grip around her skin. She couldn't have pulled free even if she had stood up and made a fuss about it. Remembering the other customers around her, she tried to remain calm, even though her face was panicky. She couldn't stand the feel of his skin on hers. He had touched her hand once before, in his house, but now it was like hot coals to her skin.
"You're hurting my wrist." She said quietly.
"He had a daugher and she was about your age." He told her, but it was nothing she didn't already know. He knew who she was, and that was enough for her.
"Let go of my wrist." She told him again.
"I knew that there was something familiar about you. You're exactly like your old man, you know that?" Of course she knew that, people told her that every day, every time she cracked a safe. "I liked him too, right from the start. I liked him right up until the minute I shot him." Her eyes were filling with angry tears. Here she was, inches away from him, and he had the nerve to taunt her about her father. "Who are you working with?"
She had had enough. She wanted out. Now. She knocked over the blue bottle beside her, which created a sound loud enough to bring Charlie and the others out of their hiding places.
"She's with us." Charlie said, coming to stand beside her. The look on Steve's face was priceless. He could have been looking at a ghost. Well, he did think they were all dead. After a moment of evident shock, he tried to regain his powerful demeanor as he looked around him. Left-ear waved, and Rob went to stand just behind Charlie and Stella.
"Gangs all here." Steve observed.
"You know the only thing worse than a theif? A coward." Stella said, glad that even though the plan was out in the open, she could finally say what she wanted about him. Nothing could have prepared her for what Steve said next though.
"Then you should have seen the way your Daddy begged for his life." Steve teased. He looked like he had been waiting to say it for a while, which made them all much angrier.
If Charlie and Handsome Rob had not been standing beside her ready, she would have flown across the table at him. She managed to scratch his cheek with her nails as she lunged out at him, causing everything on the table to crash about, but both Charlie and Handsome pulled her back before she had to chance to kill him like she wanted to. Steve wasn't prepared for her reaction either, and lept backwards in his seat to get away from her.
"It's not worth it." Charlie told her, trying to calm her down now that Handsome was holding her back by the forearms. Had it not been for the gold and simply for revenge, he would have happily thrown her across the table so she could have hit him sooner, then, when she had her fill of vevenge, he would have pummeled the life out of Steve.
"Put a leash on your cat!" Steve said bitterly.
Stella tried to lunge out again, wanting to break free of Handsome's hold on her, but they restrained her. Her and Rob walked away, going over to where Left-ear was, Charlie nodded to them, and they went outside. Once outside, Stella had tears of frustration and hatred running down her cheeks. Across the street, the van was parked from where Lyle was listening on on a wire that Stella was wearing inside her top. Stella walked quickly, getting into the van ahead of them and sitting in the corner, just out of sight of the camera screens, which Lyle had turned off now that she was inside. The others climbed inside.
"I heard everything." Lyle told them. "Loud and clear."
Stella was just sitting quietly, occassionally sniffing, but not really noticing that anyone else was there. Handsome turned to Lyle. "Charlie's still in there he-"
"Tell me it's not true." Stella said softly, but loud enough for them all the hear her. She looked up at them when she didn't answer. "Tell me he didn't beg for his life."
None of them were the best people to comfort a crying woman. But it was no suprise that Handsome took up the reigns. He climbed over Left-ear, who had sat down beside him, and sat on the van floor beside her. It was cold in the van now that it was later, and she was only wearing a small top. Looking around him, Handsome spotted Charlie's jacked draped over the drivers seat. Taking it, he put it around her shoulders, as she hadn't noticed nor cared that she was shivering.
"He didn't beg." Handsome told her. "Anything but." Stella sniffed again.
"I'll kill him." She said angrily. "I'll look him in the eye and I'll kill him."
"That won't solve anything." Handsome said. "It won't bring him back."
"It will make me feel better." She said. Once again, she felt like she was a child, wondering why all the good people died and the bad people were allowed to live and make other people feel bad. Shivering, she pulled Charlie's jacked closer around her, not really noticing it was his until that moment, and went back to being silent again.
Back in the resturant, Charlie sat down in Stella's chair. Now that the others were gone, especially Stella, he could say exactly what he want to say.
"Hey, Steve." He started.
"Charlie." Steve began civilly with a nod. "Not bad, Charlie, really, not bad." He complimented.
"You have no idea how hard it is for me not to reach across this table and kill you with my bare hands." Charlie told him. Of course, if it hadn't been for the many witnesses in the highly expensive Hollywood resturant, he would have already buried Steve by now.
"You know better than that Charlie. You can't let emotion into these things." Steve said, and he was right. Charlie did know better than that - that was the only reason why Steve was still alive.
"Tell me it wasn't about emotion when you shot John and left us all for dead." Charlie challenged. It was emotional for everyone else, so he sure as hell hoped that Steve felt guilty.
"It wasn't about emotion. It was about a lot of gold and I wanted it." As always, he was being greedy. He always wanted the attention of their mentor, John, over Charlie. Steve had known John longer than Charlie had, and had already done several jobs with him before Charlie had even joined the gang, but John had always favoured Charlie over Steve.
"Anything you think you deserved, you didn't." Charlie told him.
"Don't talk about right and wrong with me, man, 'cause I just don't give a shit. You got your cards, I got my cards, we made our play, and I came out on top. Now if you wanna start the game up again, that's fine with me." The game had been started up again, and Charlie was winning. They already had the plan. "What is your play, right now, really? What do you think? You'll try to take out my guards? I have five of them that you don't even know about. You'll try to have Lyle hack the system? I'll change it again tomorrow morning. And what was you final move? I mean, you were gonna have Bridger's daughter come in and try to crack my safe? It's very poetic and all, but I just don't see it. I don't think she'll get anywhere near it."
I do, Charlie thought to himself. "Same old Steve, always thinking defensively. That's why you're always number two."
"How do you figure that?" Steve asked. Now Charlie could tell that he was beginning to panic, even if he was trying hard not to show it.
"You've got no imagination. You couldn't even decide what to do with all that money, you had to buy what everyone else wanted." Lyle's stereo, Handsome Rob's car, even had a house that had Spanish roots like Left-ear's dream house in the south of Spain.
"Try this one on your imagination - that gold is already gone." Steve lied. Charlie knew straight away that he was lying. He would have rubbed it in before if it were true.
"That's bullshit Steve."
"No, really, it's over, Charlie. I'm trying to move the last two bricks. You wanna come after me over a couple of lousy bricks?" Charlie nodded. He'd go after Steve if there were no bricks left, all he wanted was to get back at Steve. "Really, be my guest." Oh, well now that I have your permission, Charlie thought sarcastically. "But you're off to a bad start. You just blew the best thing you had going for you - you just blew the element of suprise."
Charlie stood up and leaned across the table before Steve had barely finished his sentence, punching Steve so hard across the face that he fell off his chair and landed on the floor. It happened so quickly that Steve was still grinning stupidly when Charlie's fist came into contact with his jaw.
"Suprised?" Charlie asked, throwing a few dollar notes onto the table. "It's over when I say it's over." As people tried to help Steve up from the ground, all of which help he refused, Charlie went to join the others.
He sat down by Stella, not reclaiming his jacket. His whole body was burning with hatred right now, which was keeping him warm enough. "You OK?" He asked Stella, not knowing what else to say to her for the moment. She didn't move, only nodding ever so slightly. "Let's go." He said to Rob, who got into the front seat of the van and drove them back to the hotel.
While the others had gone straight to the bar, Stella had gone straight to her room. She had cried for while, and was still crying a little when she heard a knock on her door. She didn't answer the knock, but still heard the door creeking open. Looking over, she wasn't at all suprised that it was Charlie who stood in the doorway, closing the door behind him. He came and sat beside her on the bed, keeping a gap between them on the bed. He noticed she had already changed into more casual clothes, probably ready for bed.
"How you doing?" He asked her quietly, almost a whisper.
"Good." She answered with a firm nod. He knew straight away from the tears on her cheeks that she wasn't fine though. "Considering...Considering I'm doing all of this for a man I barely knew." There was silence, when Charlie wasn't exactly sure what he should say to her. She was telling the truth, she barely knew her father, but he was the only person she had ever really opened up to. "You know what bothered me all those years, Charlie?" She asked him, looking at into his eyes. "It was that whenever he'd call me to tell me he was on some job, I knew that you were right there with him. You got to know him a lot better than I did."
"Just because he wasn't around you more doesn't mean he wasn't thinking about you all of the time." He told her.
"That'd be nice if it were true." She answered, wondering if it was all just something that he was saying to try and make her feel better.
"It is true. He always regretted not being a good enough father to you, Stella." Charlie assured her.
She looked up at him again, this time holding his gaze for a long time. "How do you know that?" She asked him.
"Because he told me." He replied simply. John spoke about Stella non stop when they were on jobs. He would walk into a museum and tell them that Stella would have loved to be there, that she would have hated what he was doing, and more importantly, that he missed her.
"What did you do to your hand?" She asked, trying to steer the conversation away from John so that she wouldn't start crying hysterically.
"I punched Steve." Charlie said like a little boy who was proud of what he had done, but was too ashamed to face his parents with it.
"Oh, why do you get to punch him and I don't?" She said unfairly. She had wanted to punch him for a year now, but Charlie and Rob had held her back.
"Those hands are way to valuable." He said, motioning to where they were folded in her lap.
The phrase made her smile, and she couldn't hold it back even though tears still sat on her cheeks. Charlie put his arm around her and she instinctively leaned in whilst he placed a loving but chaste kiss on her temple, but she pulled back from him after, suprised to find that his hand was still on her back. She wiped her eyes, suddenly felt ashamed of crying in front of him.
"Look at me." She said hypothetically. "I'm a mess." She dropped her hands in surrender, too exhausted both physically and mentally to try anymore.
"I'm looking at you." Charlie told her. "And you're beautiful." He suddenly realised that he hadn't meant to tell her that. Sure, he had been thinking it, but he didn't think he'd actually work it up to tell her. She was beautiful, even though she had tears on her skin and her eyes were red and puffy from crying. Her eyes had lost their playful glitter which flared whenever she was driving with the wind in her hair from the open window, but they were still inviting oceans of blue which he felt compelled to look into whenever he was near her.
She shook her head, as if unable to believe it, but was really replaying Charlie's words in her head. You're beautiful. It was like a song being played over and over again. Charlie's hand rubbed her back, and she felt fresh tears springing to her eyes from his words.
"It's been a long time since anyone's said that to me." She admitted.
"I'll say it again if you want me to." He told her with a smile. "'Cause you are, so I'll say it a million times. You're beautiful, Stella."
She began to cry again, unable to hold in the sob that racked her body. Charlie, who had seen girls cry hundreds of times with his sisters, pulled her closer towards him and held her reassuringly. She didn't pull away this time, and was glad that he was there to comfort her. Since John had died, she hadn't really had anyone to talk to like this; and she was suprised that now she had, it was Charlie.
Her sobs ceased after a few minutes, and all that was left was a few hiccups and the salty residue of her tears. She didn't pull away from him when she had finished, instead, she kept her head rested on his shoulder. With all the crying and the amount of emotion she had unleashed that night, she was exhausted. Charlie also stayed where he was, realising that he hadn't been this close to Stella for a long time, and had never known until then how much he had missed holding her like this. Stella, at the same time, was remembering how much she had loved him holding her in his arms. If they had known what the other was thinking, and that it was the same, they probably would have been shocked, but not entirely suprised.
"Where are the others?" She asked, to break the silence that was becoming too awkward for her liking.
"Down in the bar." He told her, she could hear the distraction in his voice.
"You should go down there with them, they'll wonder where you are." She suggested, even though her mind was telling her thant she didn't want him to go anywhere.
"I'm not going anywhere until I know you're OK." He said firmly, but softly.
Stella didn't know what to say. She wasn't Ok, and she wanted him to stay, but she couldn't get her words out to say it without wanting to sound desperate. Charlie didn't leave, he stayed right where he was, and continued to hold her just as tightly. She sighed for a moment. "Thank you." She finally managed to say. "Thank you, Charlie."
"I don't know what you're thanking me for." He admitted. "It's my fault that you had to go through with this." He reminded her. He hadn't wanted to send her on a date with Steve. He felt that he should have let Left-ear deal with Steve the moment he started hitting on her. "I'm sorry you had to. I didn't want you to."
"I didn't want to either." She told him. "I had to for Dad, though."
"Thats the only reason I let you go." Charlie admitted, suddenly spilling out all the things he had wanted to tell her before her date. "The last thing I wanted to do was to hand you over to him, let him tease you like that. It killed me to see you with him."
Charlie was left wondering momentarily why it had caused him so much discomfort to see it. Was it because he was jealous, and that he wanted to be with her, or because Steve was just a threat to her? Don't lie to yourself, you care about her.
"Why?" She asked quietly, a question that he didn't want to answer,but knew that he had to.
"Because I care about you, Stella." He whispered, but in the quiet room, his words still reached her easily, even though she was sure that she had misheard them at first. "I just don't want to see you hurt through all of this." He explained further. Do you not want her hurt because it would weigh down your conscience or weigh down your heart? His mind asked him.
Stella stayed silent, and he panicked that he had been too forward with what he had said. He then heard her yawn.
"You're tired." He commented obviously.
"It's been a long day." She told him. Her mind was drained as well as her body, and she was beginning to feel drawn to sleep.
"Here," Charlie began, "Lay down." He followed her onto the bed, and when she laid down, he pulled the thin hotel blankets over her. He stayed on top of the blankets, half sitting and half laying beside her. "That better?" He asked. She closed her eyes and nodded, realising that she was resting her head in the gap between his neck and shoulder, and that the arm she was laying on of his was wrapped around her, resting precariously on her hip beneath the blanket. Not daring himself to do anything else, he lay still with her, but was casually suprised when her hand appeared above the blankets and took hold of his.
"Charlie?" She asked.
"Yeah?" He said, trying to hide his suprise and yet also not believing his luck.
"I care about you too." She told him, her eyes still closed and her body laying barely an inch from his. He felt his heart racing with excitement when she told him that, and had they been closer, he probably would have felt her own heartbeat hammering against his skin. Clutching her hand, he gave it a reassuring squeeze along with another friendly kiss on her temple. This time, he lingered for a few moments afterwards, and she could feel his warm breath on her skin. Knowing that she was so exhausted, and vunerable, he refused to take advantage of her in the way that most men would have at this moment. Here she was, lying in his arms once again, welcoming his touch, and his kisses, and he knew that it was mainly for comfort reasons, and couldn't bring himself to exploit her and take advantage of her like that.
Stella kept her eyes closed, and after a few moments, she was sure that she had convinced him she was asleep. She had expected him to leave once he was sure she was asleep, but half an hour passed, and he stayed exactly where he was, not even moving his hands. Soon, she realised that he was obviously not planning to leave her than night, and she was glad for it. She felt her arm being lifted, the one that was holding Charlie's, and felt him press his lips to it softly. Unable to hold in her smile, she turned her head a little and tried to hide it in the pillow that was Charlie's shoulder, but he had seen it, and it had brought his cheeky trademark grin to his face. After a few more moments, feeling comfortable and safe in his arms, she fell into a deep sleep, which was filled with the taunting face of Steve Frizelli.
Charlie heard the door creak open an hour after Stella had fallen asleep. Lifting his head a little, he saw three drunken faces in the doorway, peeking around the door. Lyle, Left-ear and Handsome Rob had obviously drunk a lot in the time that he had been gone, and it had already gone to their heads. Lyle, he knew, was easily effected by alcohol, but from the silly look on Handsome's face, he knew that it was probably down to some kind of messed up drinking game.
"Look!" Lyle said in a loud whisper. "Charlie's in Stella's bed!"
"Get out of here!" Charlie whispered.
"At least one of us got lucky tonight." Left-ear said resentfully.
"They're wearing clothes still." Handsome pointed out. "He's not that lucky yet."
"If you wake her up I'm going to kill you!" Charlie threatened lightly, even though they were drunk they all knew that it wasn't true. "Now, get out of here!"
Giggling drunkenly, they left, closing Stella's door behind them and making noise all the way back to their rooms. Charlie sighed as they left, looking down at Stella and noticing that they hadn't woken her up, thankfully. Settling his head back against the pillow, he drifted off into sleep himself, finally happy that he was getting back on Stella's good side. It was obvious to everyone, however, that he was on more than her good side now.