The characters below are yanked out of JE's world. I didn't invent any of them, but happily took her hard work and used it for my own amusement.
Jenny (JenRar) you said to post this after doing your beta magic on it and I trust you enough to take your word for it. Thanks for being up for anything I send your way.
A single beam of light from a flashlight broke the stillness of a crowded, but well-organized room. The light fell on a collection of neatly stacked banker's boxes before moving to a row of filing cabinets, a bookshelf with collections of papers held in tidy stacks in bins, and a desk with a laptop. The top of the desk had notes on scraps of paper, giving the impression that the space belonged to someone who had an active mind and needed help staying on top of their responsibilities, not that they were crazed and unable to control the chaos. Despite the room being full, it had a homey and comfortable feel, but it was apparent it had not been used for several months.
Once the single flashlight completed its scan of the room, finding only a window, which was bolted shut, and no other entrances or exits, the owner of the light motioned behind him, causing seven new beams of light to enter the room, completing the same scan as their leader. A series of eight different male voices echoed each other with the single word: "Clear."
Having agreed there was no risk of confrontation, the overhead light was switched on and the small maglites were returned to the holders at the waist of their owners. In the midst of the organized office stood eight well-conditioned men, all wearing black, including their tightly fitted shirts tucked into cargo pants, each containing various weapons, both seen and carefully concealed. On their heads, two of the men wore caps; one was plain black, and the other said simply "Seals" in a script that indicated he had an association with the Navy, not a performing animal troop. Each man wore a well broken-in pair of combat boots. Despite their brawn, as they spread out through the room, no sounds were made. Initially, they communicated with hand gestures, but even those gave way to intense stares, which provided the impression a form of silent communication or ESP was taking place. All in all, it was an impressive sight.
"Spread out and see if you can find any evidence of why all activity in here has stopped," barked out the man at the front, who by every indication was the leader. His name was embroidered on the shirt of each man in the group, as the company employing this set of soldiers was RangeMan, built on the reputation of Ranger. He moved with a grace most women would envy, but even standing still, he gave off an aura of being completely in control and capable of taking a life without breaking a sweat. He held the kind of power most men only dreamed of, but he seemed completely uninterested in how others saw him. He was in this room for a purpose, and nothing would stop him from getting the answers he was after.
The largest member of their group, a man aptly named Tank, moved to the stack of banker's boxes in the corner and began to read the labels, looking for any clue in the big picture before getting lost in the details contained inside the boxes. Every so often, he would glance to the door, keeping the exit in sight, before glancing back to Ranger, as though years of experience watching their leader's back made it impossible for him to be in the field without continuing that job, regardless of how secure the room seemed at the moment.
Beside the boxes sat a row of filing cabinets, which two men – Lester and Bobby – moved to cover. They read the labels neatly written on each drawer before moving to pick the small lock in order to investigate the contents inside. Together, the four men who moved first made up the core team of the security firm RangeMan. Once they were established in the room, the remaining four found their places.
Hal and Cal began to look at the bookshelves. Despite their names having similar rings, everything else about these men was different. Cal was outgoing, made no apologies for anything, including the flaming skull tattoo predominately featured on his forehead. Hal was more reserved and quiet. Had he been spotted on the street, one might have easily confused him for a quiet school teacher instead of the former naval officer he happened to be. In spite of their differences, the two men were friends and often worked as partners in the field. It was this connection that allowed them to know that Hal would begin on the bottom shelf while Cal would start at the top. They would each complete a review of the entire piece of furniture, knowing they tended to pick up on different things, so the redundancy still held a vital purpose.
The next man, Rodriguez, took possession of the laptop, moving it to a chair in the corner. At first glance, his quiet exterior might lead one to think he was all brawn and no brains, but the moment the electronic device booted up, the wisdom in his eyes would easily convince the viewer he more than knew his way around a hard drive and would be able to figure out any secrets held on this machine.
With the computer gone from the desk, Ram knelt and began his search of the furniture before turning his attention to whatever mysteries might be contained in the drawers. His eyes were sharply focused, searching for any detail, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. Years of experience and the skills developed as a sniper in the US Army were evident on his face, eager to discover a clue, but not rushed to the point of missing something important.
This group of Merry Men, so named by the curly headed brunette they hung out with most often, worked in companionable silence until Ranger broke the stillness exactly ten minutes after they entered by barking out a single word: "Report."
The large man by the boxes spoke first, his deep voice filling the room, even though he was using a hushed voice. "Each box is marked, but she uses some kind of code that I don't understand. It's obvious she's got her stuff together. I don't know how to break into her system."
Bobby and Lester confirmed their experience in the filing cabinets was identical to Tank's. "We've got a perfect set of alphabetized folders, but the labels are primarily acronyms, because they're in all capital letters with very few vowels, and we don't know what they mean," reported Lester, his face somber, despite the lines around his eyes and mouth making one think he tended to smile rather often.
Once Cal repeated the same response from the bookshelf, Ranger began to stretch his neck from side to side, obviously displeased with their lack of answers so far. This place had been a setting for near-constant activity for three years. It defied logic that all activity would cease for no reason. Before he could remind his men it was vital they not fail on their mission, the more quiet man of their group spoke up from the laptop he'd been holding.
"I may have the answer. What kind of codes are you seeing?"
Bobby spoke first, reading the name on the hanging folder he had in his hand. "This one is labeled UNF/ABD."
"That stands for unfinished and abandoned," Rodriguez explained. "Any others?"
"SSNP," Hal called out from the bottom of the bookshelf.
"Single scene, no plot," offered Rodriguez.
Ranger took a seat in the guest chair across from the desk, pleased that they had already found a way through their first road block. For the next five minutes, the men would call out a set of initials that seemed to be meaningless and Rodriguez would reference his list to provide the necessary decryption.
The process moved quickly until Ram pulled a folder from the bottom drawer of the desk and read the label, "PWP."
"Ummm," Rodriguez began, putting Ranger on edge that he didn't instantly call out the meaning.
"What is PWP?" Ranger pressed his lead researcher.
"According to this, it's Porn without Plot," he said without looking from the computer screen.
A series of audible breaths was the instant response.
"You want me to look through that file?" Lester asked, a hint of the jokester beginning to break through his previously serious face.
"Negative," Ram argued. "I think we'll make more progress if you stay away from this folder."
Before Lester could argue the point, Rodriguez asked, "Does anybody have one marked SUBS?" This time, Cal called out he had the folder Rodriguez referred to, prompting him to explain, "It means sexually unbelievable scenes."
"Oh, come on. Why don't I have any of the good ones?" Lester complained just before the sound of a fist hitting solid flesh alerted all the men that Bobby had smacked the complaining man to his left.
"Can you send the list to everyone on their phone so they have the code themselves?" Ranger asked, seeing how quickly this mission could get derailed now that the word sex had been uttered. He respected his men, but he recognized that the trade-off for surrounding himself with people who were in top physical condition was that they often excelled at everything with a physical element. And nothing appealed to a man like that more than sex. If they were going to solve their mystery tonight, he had to nip this before it got out of hand.
"Got it," Rodriguez replied, letting him know his order was being carried out.
Not that he'd doubted it would be. His men knew better than to disregard a command if they wanted to avoid a trip to the hospital and possibly traction for the following three to five weeks. Respect could be hard earned, but he had no doubt he had fully earned it – one meeting on the mats at the time.
"Hey, Bobby," Tank called out, obviously referencing the file he was holding in his hand. "You have a scar on your lower back?"
"Yeah," Bobby answered. "It's mostly faded now, but I took a knife back there when I was young, and since my family wasn't exactly the kind you could come home and report getting into a fight to, I tried taking care of it myself so it got worse before it got better and left a mark." After a pause, where Tank offered no additional details, Bobby asked, "Why?"
"There was a folder here marked PDS, which stood for physical descriptions, so I thought I'd see if she really had accurate data. The first few were simple enough, but yours was the first with details I was unfamiliar with."
"How did she know that?" Bobby asked to no one in particular. "I don't remember telling anyone about the scar, and it's usually covered up with my waistband."
"Do I need to remind you gentleman where we are?" Ranger interrupted Bobby's ruminations. "What else do we know?"
"I've got a folder she called CC for Couldn't Continue," Cal began, holding a beige-colored folder in his hand. "Most of these are between one to three pages, and then she stopped typing and has a hand-written reason for why she can't continue."
"What kind of reasons?" Ranger asked, leaning forward and steepling his fingers under his chin, obviously interested in the answer.
"Here's one that starts with Binkie and Stephanie, and after a pretty good scene of them sharing a meal at Pino's, he takes her home, secures her apartment, and then she stopped typing to add the note, 'can't continue – there is no way to write a scene where Stephanie has to say the name Binkie in the throws of passion.' She has a date of six months ago beneath her note, so this isn't a recently abandoned project."
"What are the other reasons and dates?" Ranger followed up without commenting on the ridiculous suggestion of anyone calling out the nickname Binkie in the bedroom.
"The most recent one was from September, and they go as far back as two years ago. Her notes vary from things like she can't make Stephanie move to Miami to begin a relationship with Silvio to small things like Hector is gay."
Ranger nodded his head, as though agreeing with all the explanations for the projects that had been abandoned. "Who else has something?"
Lester's voice, much louder than it had been, cut through the room when he called out, "Holy shit, Tank. You dirty dawg you!"
"What the hell are you talking about, Santos?" Tank didn't sound as though he wanted to play guessing games, so he used his full "second-in-command but fully capable of kicking ass in his own right" voice to keep Santos on topic.
"This folder was filed in a group of stories labeled as unbelievable but too fun to stop writing. She called it 'Big Daddy,' and in it, she sets up a situation where you end up taking care of Stephanie when Ranger moves to Miami indefinitely. After you nurture our girl to get her functioning again, your relationship shifts, and where she used to sit in your lap for comfort, it suddenly becomes more for foreplay, and before long, Stephanie is screaming out things like, 'I've been a very bad girl and think it's time for my punishment,' while you teach her that pain can often be a powerful prelude to pleasure." Lester's eyes scanned down the page and flipped to the next sheet of paper, only to have him wipe his hand over his forehead to catch the small beads of sweat. "I never thought I'd like this kind of thing, but I've got to admit, I'll never hear the phrase 'who's your Daddy' without thinking of Steph in a short plaid skirt with her ass in the air for you to redden up."
"Give me that," Tank yelled, yanking the folder from his teammate's hand, as though he didn't believe what Santos was saying. Holding the folder carefully, he flipped to the next to the last page to read briefly before moving to the seat next to his boss when his legs no longer felt as stable. "Sweet Jesus, I've never done anything like this, but…"
"I know, right?" Santos agreed.
This time, Hal's voice called out, "What is core-gi?"
"You mean the breed of dog?" Rodriguez asked, trying to be helpful.
Hal instantly shot that idea down. "No, that's spelled differently. I think I'm saying this right, since there is a hypen in it. It's something she and a girl named Dina seem to have come up with. If this partial story is an example of what it is, I think it's a story where Stephanie somehow enters into relationships with each member of the core team, but instead of you all demanding she pick just one, you agree that her dating you all is probably the only way to meet all her needs without asking more of you than you can give."
"Fuck!" Tank exclaimed, although it was unclear if he was responding to the idea of Stephanie dating the four men who comprised the team, or if he was still lost in the story with him disciplining Stephanie.
"She's even got a sex scene here with Ranger calling the shots, Tank watching from a chair in the corner, Lester getting down and dirty, and Bobby reminding everybody that Stephanie can't keep this kind of thing going indefinitely without needing breaks so her body doesn't get hurt. It's like a cross between a porn scene and a sexy science experiment."
"What's BCRU?" Bobby didn't seem fazed by the idea of him and his closest friends all with the same woman and moved on to the folder in his hand.
"Wait, I saw that somewhere else," Rodriguez replied, quickly clicking through folders until he announced, "It's a group, like a list-serve-type website, I think, called Babe Cakes Are Us. Why?"
"Well, she's got a folder of story prompts people have suggested to her from that group, and then there's a single sheet titled 'Claimed,' with a list of girls on one side and list of us on the other, where apparently these woman have specifically requested they be written into a story where they are the love of our lives," Bobby explained, piecing together the information from the documents contained in the file.
"Wait," Cal called out, obviously interested in learning more. "Did somebody want to be with me?"
Bobby laughed but looked down the piece of paper before saying, "There's no accounting for taste, but it looks like some chick named Heather called dibbs on you."
"Heather..." Cal repeated the name twice, as though testing it out, and then smiled. "I've got a woman named Heather who wants to be the love of my life."
"Dude, she's never met you," Santos said, finally managing to pull himself from the core-gi story Hal had been holding.
Hal was currently sucking on his finger, which was still bleeding from the papercut Lester caused by yanking the file from him. He paused from his less-than-ideal first-aid to ask, "How about me?"
"Yeah, man, you're covered," Bobby replied with a chuckle. "Some woman named Angela. According to an email, she says she 'hearts you.' What the hell does that mean?"
"It means she's sweet on me," Hal answered, causing everyone to look in his direction as though they weren't sure which was more surprising – the fact that he spoke at all, or the fact that he chose to break his silence with something that sounded like a girl from the 1950s.
"Anybody want a real man and step up to the plate for me?" Santos asked, obviously not wanting to be left out of the fun.
"Christi wanted you, but only if she couldn't have Ranger as her first choice," Bobby read, causing Ranger's face to momentarily show amusement before he locked his blank expression back into place.
"Shit, man, I'm the runner up?" Lester complained before picking up the group sex scene he'd been reading and beginning once more. "In this one, I'm not the runner up."
"No, you were the side kick," Hal corrected, getting more surprised stares in his general direction. "The Robin to his Batman."
This time, Ranger couldn't keep his blank face in place and a full-fledged smile broke out. Even the fully hetero guys couldn't help but notice their boss was a good-looking man. As if sensing their thoughts, his smile shifted to a smirk.
"Smug bastard," Tank accused under his breath.
Bobby read off the rest of the list in case anyone was interested. "Jenn Howard wants Rodriguez, Mandy wants a rodeo with Woody, Zip's been claimed by Karen, who goes by the name of Mooch – the cat, not Morelli, Dana wants Scar—"
Before he could go any further, Cal jumped in. "Wait, we've got an employee named Scar?
"Keep up, man. He's in Boston, but he came down once to help keep an eye on Stephanie," Ram reminded him. "How about me?"
"Yeah, you're on here with a woman named Barbara," Bobby confirmed.
"I know her," Ram seemed pleased. "She makes the most incredible chocolate chip cookies with just the right balance of butter and chocolate."
"You eat cookies?" Ranger questioned, obviously not pleased with the admission of contraband junk food.
"You would too if you ever tasted one," Ram argued. "If she'd cook for me, then I'd be thrilled to have her as the love of my life."
Not stopping so near the end of the list, Bobby picked up where he'd been interrupted. "Then there's another chick named Brenda who wants a chance with Scar, too."
"Wait, he's not even one of the main characters, and he's got two women," Cal complained, still hung up on that fact.
"Don't get your panties in a wad. There's another woman listed named Allyssa, or Lyss, who is willing to have a go with you."
"See," Cal blurted out. "I told you guys, girls dig the tattoo. I've got two of them after me now."
"Hannelle is willing to take Hector, Hal, Cal, or Tank," Bobby continued reading.
"Somebody wants me?" Tank seemed surprised. "She knows I'm bigger than the average man, right?"
"I think your name alone makes that clear," Santos mumbled.
"And Amy Walker is still laying claim to me." Despite his dark skin, he almost seemed to blush when he read his own name.
"The Doctor was too smart to settle for you," Ranger pointed out, remembering how she saved his life.
Bobby looked away from the list in his hands to grin at his boss, "A woman's greatest sexual organ is her brain." Then after thinking about Amy some more he bragged, "You know we got married."
"Shut up, man. You got married only after following my example when I married Stephanie," Lester pointed out.
"I married Stephanie before you did in Saving Lester," Bobby reminded him, "Broken Wings ring a bell?"
"Man, your wedding was buried in the epilogue," Lester argued. "Besides that, I was the first one to marry her in the Merry Parents story."
"Where I was gay!" Cal spoke up, shutting the folder he had been looking at. "Why the hell does she keep making me gay? First that one, then in The Fever and once more in 4 Hours!"
A slight pall of silence came over the men at the mention of 4 Hours. None of them liked to think back to that bleak time, when the woman they all loved was nearly taken from them.
"As much as I love hearing you play who's the man, I've been featured more than any of you, and do I have to keep reminding you that none of what happened in the past is explaining why there hasn't been any activity in nearly three months?" Ranger spoke, his frustration growing with every word.
"Hey, Santos," Tank called out, not seeming to be phased by his Ranger's tone. "Is this physically possible?" The folder was held between them as Lester's eyes scanned quickly over the section Tank's meaty finger was pointing to.
When he finished reading, Santos sat back and shook his head. "If the chick is really into yoga or used to have a career in the circus, then maybe, but I'm not sure Steph can get her legs like that and hold it for very long."
"But if she could…" Tank began, leaving the mental image hanging between them.
"If she could, it would be because someone had written it," Ranger jumped in, even more irritated for being ignored. "Need I remind you that if we can't figure out what happened here, then she may not come back and write again? And if there are no stories being posted, then we don't actually exist."
The idea of no longer living bigger than life adventures was sobering enough that Lester returned the core-gi folder to Hal, only holding onto it briefly before allowing the younger man to pull it free and return it to the correct bin on the bookshelf. Then he returned to the drawer where he'd stopped his search.
The silence began to build, making Ranger uncharacteristically on edge. Unable to take the quiet anymore, he called out, "What would be a reason she would suddenly stop writing?"
"She may have just written all the good stuff, and now she's out of ideas," Ram suggested, glad that his story could be included in the idea of good stuff if that turned out to be true. Even though they all hoped it was wrong, none of the others had said it because deep down, it was their greatest fear.
This time, Cal lifted a thick folder, bursting open with paper. "I don't think that's it, because this one is labeled MITT, which means more ideas than time. It's chock-full of possible story lines," he explained, flipping through the pages quickly. "There's a few featuring me," he bragged, before turning several more papers over and allowing the grin to disappear. "And yet another one where I'm gay. I'm throwing this one out."
"No!" all the men shouted at once.
"We can't change anything," Ram reminded the boldly tattooed man to his right. "We all agreed we were just here to look for clues; we can't impact anything she might be planning."
Begrudgingly, Cal returned the paper to the folder, but he did bury it farther back in the file, as though hoping to keep it from being accessed.
"So we know she didn't stop because of a shortage of plot ideas," Ranger said, bringing them back on track.
"Here's a folder full of reviews that are horrendous." Bobby held up a thinner folder, containing several dozen printed sheets. "They range from suggestions for improving her writing technique, to outright insults about simple story lines, completely unbelievable plots, repetitive ideas, using the same dialogue lines over and over. Some of these are…harsh. I thought this community was supportive."
"Do you think she stopped because she felt threatened or that her skills weren't worth continuing?" Ranger seemed both irritated and skeptical.
"I don't think so," Lester disagreed. "I mean, here's a drawer full of positive reviews, so even though she's gotten some harsh letters, they don't come close to equaling the supportive comments. The community is fine – there are crazies everywhere that just can't stop themselves from being mean."
"You sound like a girl in middle school encountering a bully for the first time," Tank teased.
"All right," Ranger growled, attempting to pull them back on topic once more. "So she's got ideas, she's got support… Are there any distractions that you think are taking her time away from writing?"
That seemed like a logical next thing to search for, so each of the men turned back to their assigned location and began shuffling through papers. It was Tank that next broke the silence while lifting a box from the floor to put it back on the top of the stack so he didn't have to bend over to look inside. "This one is labeled original fiction."
Each of the men sucked in a quick breath.
"Original, as in AU?" Rodriguez asked, looking at the computer screen.
"What's AU?" Ranger wondered, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration and concern.
"Alternate universe," Rodriguez explained. "It's where the characters everyone knows are put in totally new situations or parts of their past are changed to almost make them into something new and different. So, Stephanie would be a school teacher instead of a bounty hunter, but she'd still end up running into RangeMan somehow and falling for one of us. Maybe someone quiet, yet smart, and really gifted with electronics."
"Shut up, man. You had your moment in the sun," Lester hushed his co-worker sharply.
Tank brought the conversation back to his finding. "No, this isn't an alternate universe. It's totally different people – something she's made up entirely on her own." Despite his deep voice, there was a slight crack that indicated mild panic over the idea of her focusing on something other than their world when he explained what he was seeing.
"She's writing a novel of her own?" Brown asked, swallowing audibly after speaking.
Tank moved some things around in the box before saying, "It looks like she's written a couple of original things already, but the one on top is the first one she's sent out to an editor for help on."
"Does it look like she's focused on that instead of us now?" Ranger spoke the question they all needed to know the answer to.
"Well…" Tank's lack of an instant response did nothing to lessen the stress level in the room. "Not really. It looks like she worked on it over the summer and then stopped. There are some handwritten notes here and there, but it doesn't look as though it's gotten any attention since early September."
Despite the fact that no one commented, the mood in the room definitely lifted at that announcement. They'd dodged a major bullet there.
"So if that wasn't the distraction, is there something else taking her time?" Ranger reminded them of their purpose.
"Joe," Ram said aloud, pulling a red folder out and flipping it open.
"Wait... No way in hell is she turning into a Cupcake," Lester argued, refusing to believe it was true, even though the evidence in his co-worker's hand might be against his claim.
Ram turned the pages quickly, scanning them with his acute eyes before finally shaking his head. "No, she's not pairing Joe up with Stephanie in any of these. Some have him as a close friend to Stephanie, some have him in a different relationship entirely, and some have him as an abusive SOB." There were a few growls scattered across the room at that announcement. "But she put a note at the front that says even though it's fun to change Joe's character, she thinks he's probably a good guy; he's just not the right guy for our girl."
Finally, the leader of the group couldn't take the waiting anymore, and he stood up to move behind the desk, motioning for Ram to get out of the way. Ranger sat in the worn leather chair and stretched his legs under the desk, resting his hands on the arm rests on either side of the seat. It was a comfortable place to sit, so he stilled himself, trying to get a feel for the woman who used to occupy this exact place on a daily basis.
From this position, he glanced at the top of the desk and let his eyes linger on the notes scattered across the top. Some related to her children – random appointments, ideas of places they should go together. A couple appeared to be lists of some sort. Apparently, she was going to be doing some major baking, because the amount of chocolate, flour, and sugar listed was for more than a single cake or batch of cookies. He smiled when he saw apples scribbled at the bottom, as though the effects of an entire Death by Chocolate cake could be negated by eating it with a single piece of fruit.
He carefully moved the top layer of notes to look at the papers beneath. There was an appointment card for a surgeon dated in October. That was somewhat alarming, as it was strangely close to when she'd stopped posting. An explanation of benefits from her insurance carrier had notes scribbled all over it in her hastily written script.
"Bobby," Ranger called out to their resident medical expert. "What do you make of all these notes?"
Bobby took each piece of paper, including print outs from a website, a letter from an attorney, post-operative instructions, and then a second set of post-operative instructions and carefully reviewed then all before sitting down hard in the chair behind him. Such a dramatic response from the normally cool medic had all the men abandoning their searches and moving to stand around the desk.
"What does it mean?" Ranger pressed.
"I'm speculating here, but if I had to guess, I'd say she went in for a simple laparoscopic gall-bladder removal surgery. It should have been outpatient – in and out in a matter of hours with a couple of days off work before being completely back to normal in less than a week. But during the surgery, the initial surgeon cut the wrong duct and created an emergency situation. He tried to repair it by opening her up the old-fashioned way, but there were multiple complications, including her heart going haywire. So, they had to stabilize her and transport her to a major medical center for a vascular surgeon to create a stint and correct the damage done by the first idiot. She was there for over a week before being released for her long recovery at home."
The sound of a single pin being dropped could have been heard in the heavy silence that followed Bobby's speculation.
"This was really serious stuff. Her second surgery took over six hours. She nearly died with the heart complications on top of everything else."
"What does this mean now?" Hal asked, sounding very much like the shy, uncertain member of the team he was often cast to be.
"Well..." Bobby referred to the papers in his hands once more. "It looks like she took her recovery seriously. There were appointments with respiratory therapists, physical therapists, home nursing care agencies – the works. And the last sheet is a return-to-work form, where the surgeon released her to return to work on light duty in December. It looks as though all restrictions were removed in January."
"You mean a simple gall-bladder surgery took over three months to get over?" Cal couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"There was a surgeon out there who almost killed her and that's why she hasn't been writing?" Lester re-worded what he'd heard while cracking his neck.
"Yeah, then he called her in November and basically told her his mistake was the most common complication in this kind of surgery and that her body's reaction to the error was definitely unusual and he had no way to know that was going to happen," Bobby added, his voice hardening with every word.
"Is there an address for this jackass?" Ram asked, flexing his right fist, especially his trigger finger.
Bobby scanned the papers once more before looking up with a grin. "Less than five miles from this very spot."
Ranger glanced at the watch on his wrist before looking in the eager eyes of each man on the team. "Put everything back exactly where you found it. We leave nothing behind and nothing out of place." His face then broke into a smile that had his intent clearly written on it. "Then we're going hunting. It seems a doctor in town needs to be reminded of the old rule to look before you leap, especially if you leap with a scalpel in your hand."
He received seven equally dark expressions, letting him know even though he was perfectly willing to hunt down the doctor on his own, there's no way they were going to be left out of the action. What happened to this woman was preventable, unthinkable, and never going to be repeated on someone else, primarily because when they finished with this guy's hands, he wouldn't be in any shape to wield a knife on someone new.
Ranger took the papers from Bobby and put them back in their exact places, glad for the photographic memory he'd had since childhood. Then, after realizing he was done with his task faster than his men, he couldn't resist taking a pen from the cup on the desktop and matching the handwriting as best he could to add "carrots" at the bottom of the shopping list. Perhaps she'd think she'd meant to get them and pick up a bunch at the store. He knew her well enough to know that if she bought them, she would also eat them because she was adamantly opposed to wasting food. Growing up on a farm had left its mark on her in many ways, but that was one of the most obvious.
While he was smiling at his small alteration and congratulating himself on doing something to improve her eating habits, and thus, increasing her wellness, he missed his men each turning their backs to him and moving very quickly.
Rodriguez finished downloading a virus patch so that her laptop was more secure than ever. It wouldn't do for her to get back to writing only to have her whole system crash. Then, he went into her folder labeled NITTA, which stood for new ideas to think about, and added "Sequel for Searching for Rodriguez – maybe call it Finding Rodriguez." Then he closed the folder and shut down the laptop.
Ram put the folders he'd been going through back in their correct order, but in the folder full of ideas she was uncertain about, he put a check mark next to a third installment of Listening, where Ram becomes a grandfather and spends the day with his grandson at the park. People had liked his sequel, and he'd love a chance to get it on with Stephanie once more, even if they were in their early sixties.
Hal restacked each pile of papers to place them back in the appropriate bins, but he did manage to pull a single sheet of paper from the middle of one stack to place it on the top. The paper said simply: "Hal needs another story where the quiet side of his personality is played out more fully." He smiled, agreeing with that sentiment completely. Maybe it would mean getting some more of Mrs. Plum's cookies, as well. It had been far too long since anyone had baked for him.
Cal reorganized his folders and couldn't resist himself from placing large X's over three of the plot ideas that featured him in relationships with other men. But the two stories where he either got Stephanie or a girl from the group on-line, he put big check marks next to.
Bobby sorted the medical story folder in order of the stories he'd like to read, but he couldn't resist keeping the one where he single-handedly saved Stephanie and brought her back to full health on top. He always loved helping people, and having a story where he could devote himself to seeing her through a medical need meant he could shine, because no one else at RangeMan had his skills in an emergency.
Santos found the short story that had him taking Stephanie to a secluded beach to widen her sexual experience and put it on top. Then he drew a star on the page, and underlined the parts of their excursion he particularly enjoyed. He knew that before she'd post a story, the descriptions would be lengthened and a lot more detail would go into it. He could hardly wait to see what kind of a story would feature such a hot scene.
And finally, the largest member of the team reluctantly closed the folder containing Big Daddy. Then he did a quick sweep of the room before reopening it and pulling out his cell phone. Twelve clicks of his camera later, he had made a copy of the story for him to read in the solitude of his apartment later tonight. He might have said he preferred bigger women, but after reading the sections he'd skimmed in this story, there was definitely something to be said for a woman who was curvy without being too big. Apparently, flexibility wasn't as overrated as he thought. He hoped by leaving this folder on top of the boxes, she might pick it up and work on the story again. He'd love to know how it ended.
Each man reported they were done, and Ranger did a final scan of the room, adjusting the position of a photo on the bookshelf and moving the desk chair to put it at the correct angle once more. Finally confident it was exactly as they'd found it, he motioned for the men to head out, then he shut down the lights and reengaged the lock on the door before his team silently disappeared into the night, ready to right what they considered to be an unforgiveable wrong.
Ninety seconds later, the door to the office opened once more, and the rightful owner of the space walked in, slipping the lights on and moving to her desk. It had been a long time since she'd been here, but returning now felt right. For far too long, her head had been either fuzzy with medication or full of dos and don'ts to aid in her recovery. Having been fully cleared for real life and finally feeling caught up at work, she felt it was time to return to this place once more.
It seemed silly, really, to feel like she needed to come back here in order to prove she was okay after all. But this work had been such a part of her life before surgery that to fully reengage, she felt the need to write something fresh and new. She looked around her space, and even though everything was precisely where it always was, she couldn't help but feel something was different. There was a presence here that she hadn't felt in months, and it made her feel creative and desperate for the white screen and blinking cursor she spent so much time staring at.
Bringing up an open file in Word, she stared at the screen for a few moments, always loving the feeling of beginning a new adventure and trying to savor the experience while her fingers hovered over the keyboard, itching to begin typing.
Her eyes darted around the room, and each thing they fell on reminded her of a story prompt that had been floating around in her head. What to write…what to write…that was the hard part, really. Not the physical typing, but the decision and the commitment that for the next couple of months, she'd devote her imagination to a single story line and ignore all the other plot ideas that might pop up, attempting to steal her focus from the current posting.
Her eyes feel to the boxes, and she remembered the silly story she'd written for Tank and Stephanie. That was the kind of thing she tended to do when she read too many romance novels with dominate lovers in them. Of course, when she read too many romance novels in general, her stories would get entirely too sappy and she'd come up with stuff like quiet Hal turning into a leading man, or Ram being a grandfather… Honestly, nobody wanted to read about these hot men with wrinkles and sagging behinds. She'd had to lock some of those horrible plots up in her filing cabinet to keep her from wasting time on it.
When her eyes fell on the bookshelf, she laughed out loud, thinking of the story depicting Stephanie in a relationship with all four men on the core team. A friend of hers called it core-gi, and she'd spent a good week or more fantasying about that possibility. It held promise, not exactly for the group sex element, but for the fact that between the four of them, they could meet all her needs without one of them feeling too burdened, plus it might take them all to get her healthy and completely off sugar.
Knowing that mental image wasn't helpful, a quick shake of the head cleared that universe from her head, and she let her eyes go to her desk, noting some of what she considered to be her more promising ideas. She loved writing stories that had a strong romantic connection for Stephanie but also showcased the group family dynamic of the guys at RangeMan. It gave Stephanie not just a lover to focus on, but a whole support system, which Steph needed. She especially liked it when she focused on a specific friend for Stephanie. Who could that be this time? She hadn't used Hector in a while. There was so much to love about Hector, but then there was the possible language barrier, which could be problematic.
When her eyes fell on the bookshelf a second time, she grinned. Cal... She could definitely write some more about the flaming tattoo. Anytime she thought of Cal, the word flaming always popped into her head. Then, once she had that thought, she began mulling it around, which made her think of the alternate use of that word, which implied someone who was openly gay. She hadn't written Cal in a man-on-man relationship in a while. Briefly, she was distracted with the image of big muscular Cal backing someone equally strong against the wall and pressing their bodies together. Another shake of the head had to occur to get her brain reset. She knew all too well how deep the rabbit holes could be if she let herself get lost in a scene like that.
It wasn't until her eyes fell to the shopping list on her desk that the familiar tingle hit the back of her neck and she knew exactly what she was going to write. Something about the word carrots written at the bottom of the page, as though she'd actually put it there, struck her as odd. She might be forgetful and so stressed at times that she couldn't remember what to do next, but she'd never been so out of it that she'd voluntarily write carrots on a shopping list. Someone had been in here, touching her things, and based on that healthy clue, she knew exactly who it was. Apparently, she had a volunteer for who was feeling the need to be featured in a story.
She took a deep breath with her eyes closed and then let it out. A quick flex of her fingers, and she was ready to begin…
Ranger wondered how much time you could spend watching a woman before it crossed the line from keeping someone safe and going into stalker territory. The fact that he was sitting outside a cop's house where her car had been for the last twenty-four hours was probably evidence that he was walking the line, if not leaning toward the wrong option. But he was powerless against the need to know what had brought her here and caused her to stay for so long. In fact, despite most people considering him the strongest person they knew, when it came to the curly haired woman in that house, he knew his legendary control was nowhere to found. He wasn't kidding when he confessed to her once that he was a sick individual. What he didn't clarify was that most of his sick tendencies were heightened by being around her: obsessive, distracted, living in a fantasy – check, check and check. He had it bad for this woman, and no one knew but him. A quick glance to his watch told him he'd been sitting here for two hours. There was no denying it; Stephanie had a new stalker. What he was less sure about was how to tell her it was him.
Now the only decision was what to call the story and which file to put it in: OWP (open with possibilities) or RBTFTS (ridiculous but too fun to stop). Maybe another page or two would help her decide. And with a smile, she attempted to call up her inner Ranger to once again write a story worthy of such a man and the woman he called Babe.
A/N: I should apologize for posting something this random, but I was stuck in a meeting at work one day and this idea popped in my head. Since I was bored out of my mind, I opened Word and started typing this out. Hopefully this will help explain why I disappeared for three months in the fall and early winter.
Of course, now that I've brought the one-shot to this conclusion, I feel the need to warn you that I am working on something original that has been hanging around in my head for a while. Since I can't find the time to write a Plum story and an original work at the same time, I'm going to have to step away from fanfiction for a while and see what my muse wants to do outside of this universe. I'm sure I'll be back because the guys are pretty insistent that I not forget about them, plus I'd miss hearing from everyone here if I'm gone too long. Hopefully when I come back, I'll have my story out of my head and I'll be able to bring something fresh back to Stephanie's life as well.
Thank you for reading along and for all the encouragement you've given to me along the way.