A/N: One-shot done in response to a challenge last year on perfectlyplum. Use all five words: backup, promise, bet, problem, plan. I used all five words in the first sentence and again in the last paragraph.

Disclaimer: Not my characters, not making any money.

Backup Plan

By Dee

"You bet I've got a problem, but I promise you, Ranger, I have a backup plan."

"Babe."

"It's fine, Ranger. Don't worry. I'll get him." I flipped my phone shut, glad that he hadn't found out I was in the Emergency Room.

It was Thanksgiving Day, and I'd come out on my own. Tomorrow was the last day before the bond was forfeited, and Bernard Butler had gotten away again. For the fourth time. And not only had he gotten away, but in spite of my best self-defense moves he'd elbowed me right on the cheekbone as I'd attempted to cuff his hands behind his back.

One whole side of my face was swollen and purple, highlighted by various other rainbow hues, including black, brown, blue, green and red. The only color missing at the moment was yellow, and I guessed that would come later as the bruising healed. Right across the cheekbone the impact had opened a large gash, which a plastic surgery resident had just spent almost an hour putting back together with painstaking, tiny stitches and taping over so that I wouldn't have a huge, hash-marked scar.

Lucky for me my cheekbone wasn't broken. I'd breathed a sigh of relief when the ER doctor had come back in with the x-rays. I was afraid I'd have to wear one of those freaky masks the hockey players wear when they have broken bones in their face, you know, the clear ones that make your face look like a plastic doll's. Or even worse, a white one like Jason in the Friday the Thirteenth movies. Not a fashion look I wanted to cultivate.

I was feeling no pain at the moment, thanks to a double dose of Vicodin, so my backup plan was to lie in wait outside Bernard's mother's house, figuring he'd be there for Thanksgiving dinner at one o'clock in traditional Burg fashion. Let him stuff his face with turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy, drink a couple gallons of beer while watching football. Then I could stun his ass when he came out. Good plan.

Two hours later I was crouched in the bushes outside the Butler house thinking maybe my backup plan wasn't such a great idea after all. My face was hurting, I was starving, and I had to pee. Bernard, on the other hand, was probably enjoying his turkey and stuffing, with apple and pumpkin pie for dessert.

Oh, great, now not only was I starved and had to pee, but I was drooling, too, thinking about my mom's turkey and the pineapple upside down cake she always made to go along with the pumpkin pie for dessert.

As I squirmed around trying to relieve my discomfort, wondering if I had time to run around the corner to Carol Nadich's house to use the bathroom before Bernard came out, I felt a prickling run up my spine to the back of my neck, all the little hairs there standing up and saluting. A warm, hard body settled in behind mine and two iron-man arms snaked around me, pulling me close.

"I thought I might find you here, Babe," Ranger whispered into my ear, his hot breath generating goosebumps all over me.

As his lips worked their way around the side of my neck I leaned back into him, relaxing for a moment and forgetting all my little niggling discomforts. Until, that is, the side of his head bumped against my contused face.

I stifled a shriek of pain and jerked my head away from him.

"Babe, what's wrong?" he asked, reaching a hand up to cup my chin and turn my face toward him. When he saw my cheek, battered and bruised and stitched up and taped over, his face began to darken before the blankness slammed down.

"What happened to you?" Ranger's voice was low and quiet, and yet sent a shiver of fear through me.

"It's nothing, really," I whispered. "I just caught an elbow. It was kind of an accident."

"Whose elbow?" he ground out. "Butler's?"

"Well, yeah, but like I said, it was really an accident."

All of a sudden I was alone again in the bushes. Huh, I was thinking. What happened to Ranger? Where did he go so fast?

I looked up at the Butlers' front door and was shocked to observe a large, black boot kicking it open. Before my stiff legs could even get me to an upright stance, Ranger was dragging a cuffed and bleeding Bernard Butler through the door and down the sidewalk, flinging him into the back of his truck.

I saw Ranger throw a punch into the backseat and heard a muffled thud and a cry of pain. I hobbled over and grabbed Ranger's arm as he drew back to hit Butler again.

"Ranger, stop. Please."

He turned and pulled me up into his arms, lifting me off my feet and dropping kisses all over the uninjured side of my face. My legs automatically wrapped around him as his mouth found mine and forced it open, his tongue thrusting in. He kissed me like there was no tomorrow while still taking care to avoid touching the injured side of my face.

He finally drew back to look at me. "Come on, Babe, we still have time to get to your parents' house for dinner. Tank's on his way to pick up this asshole and take him in."

Ranger set me carefully on the ground and as he turned to close the truck door he swung his elbow hard into Bernard's cheekbone, causing him to cry out as blood spurted.

"Ranger!" I exclaimed. "You didn't need to do that."

"You bet I did, Babe. I promised myself I'd kill anyone that hurt you. Since you're here, that was a problem, so I had to go with my backup plan."

The end.