General Notes: Hello there! Thanks for checking in! This story (I'm thinking this will be more than a single one shot) will be a collection of short one shots inspired by various songs. I am attempting a sort of iPod shuffle because I have problems getting going on stories these days, and these can be short and sweet, and give me a theme to launch off on. At least that's the hope. I'm not doing it traditionally; I'm allowing myself to use only the title, the sentiment, or just bits and pieces, stanzas or verses, however I see fit. I should tell you: I'm not super into song fics. When I read them, I generally jump over the lyrics. I will try and make these as readable as possible, and when I do use lyrics, I will make sure they are important and applicable to the story line. So I'm going to give this a shot. I am posting now and not once I've written them all because like I said, I'm feeling discouraged with writing, and I could use some encouragement to continue, or not. This is not my best work, but I hope it will be enjoyable none the less, and I'm thinking they will get better as I get back into the swing of things! Please read and review if you liked it!

Title: Nobody Knows

Inspiration: Nobody Knows, by Pink

Summary: Ranger snaps, Stephanie sees.

Genre: Angst, Romance

WARNING: This features a somewhat angsty Ranger. There is mention of rape, murder/killing (only bad guys), and a brief, nondescript sexual interlude. None is particularly descriptive, but this is rated M FOR A REASON. Please do not read if this material is offensive to you! If it is not, read on and enjoy!

I slammed the door shut and hastily dropped my keys into the dish by the door.

I went strait to the fridge and wretched it open, grabbing a beer and popping the top off on the edge of the counter.

There were so few days when I needed a beer, but today was one of them. I wanted to relax. I wanted to get that dreamless sleep that comes with alcohol. I wanted to get so pissed drunk I would forget. Forget her. Forget the way her lips parted when I entered a room. Forget the way her eyes shown with light as though they had never known darkness. The way her skin trembled against me when I touched her.

But most of all, I wanted to forget her forgiveness. Her understanding. Her damn tolerance of the fact that I was a monster.

I didn't think I would be able to hide it forever; it was who I was. Of course it was going to come out eventually. I just didn't think she would be present to witness the deep, dark caverns of my soul take over.

He had tried to rape her. That was the only thought that resonated through my head as I saw through a disgusting cloud of red, and then saw nothing. I heard the gunshots. I smelled the gunpowder. I felt my muscles tense and release in pleasure when my vision returned and his brains were splattered across the wall.

The road of darkness has a way of always knowing my name.

I think nobody knows.

Nobody knows,

Nobody knows but me.

Accept now she new.

Sure, my men, especially Tank, Lester, and Bobby, had seen me kill. Tank had been there to see my eyes darken, he had seen me not hesitate, he had seen me kill in cold blood. He and the others saw my darkness.

But they saw it die too. They saw me reel it back in, and I could only assume, they thought it went away. Only I knew that it stayed, not quite as buried as everyone thought. It swelled inside of me, and I felt it haunt me, taunt me, corrupt me.

It made me a monster.

Because in that black hole there was no regret. There was no lapse in judgment. There was no remorse or even tentatively. I didn't lose control. I didn't do what was necessary. I killed because I wanted to.

She had seen.

She was fine after he attempted to rape her three weeks ago, or as fine as she could be. She did her denial.

And I had boiled. It had started as a soft simmer in my gut, and I knew that the longer it took to find him, the hotter it would get. By the time we strapped him to the chair, he was as good as dead, and the simmer was red hot.

I had not hesitated. I had glanced at her, asked if she wanted to leave, and after the shake of her head, I had looked back at him with nothing but disgust. I pulled the trigger, without doubt, without so much as a second thought.

And while Bobby and Tank went to clean up, Tank laying a hand on my shoulder briefly and saying quietly that it had to be done, I turned to her.

She wasn't mortified. Not even shocked. But as I turned to her, I met her eyes and I knew that she could see through me like nobody else could. She gasped, seeing past the blank face, past the glass I had placed over my eyes, and past my façade. She saw into the black, deep ugliness in my soul, and she knew that I was a monster. She finally understood that people had a reason to be scared of me.

I had hid it for so long, nobody knew it was there except me. And now her.

I had downed my third beer by the time I heard the door click open, soft taps of shoes, and I tensed.

If she knew that I was to be feared, what was she doing here?

And I knew it was her. I knew it was her because nothing could make me forget the sound of her gait, the hum of her breath flowing in and out, the rustle of her gigantic purse against her small body.

And it reminded me just how small she was. Just how vulnerable. Just how easy it would be for me to crush her if the monster ever saw red and she was in the warpath.

She needed out of my life. Away from me. She needed to be safe.

I dropped my purse on the stool next to his counter, and watched him avoid my eyes.

I had been surprised. First, that he hadn't demanded I leave before he calmly pulled the trigger, and then at the agony I had seen in his eyes when it was done.

I hadn't been surprised at the pleasure that gleamed in the black orbs alongside the pain.

I knew Ranger. He had killed before, many times, and in cold blood. I knew what he was capable of, and expected that he would enjoy ending the life of the person who had so nearly stolen mine. I think he tried to hide it from me, but I never expected any different of him.

While he had never been what people in the Burg would describe as totally sane, I somehow understood the mentality behind killing. At least when he did it. He didn't live a legally grey life because he liked to j-walk. He led one because he did things like this.

And it didn't bother me. Not at all. It scared me how much I wanted to watch the lights leave the eyes of that bastard. And while I knew Ranger felt things, I also knew that he had no qualms about killing him for me.

So when he turned, and I saw the deep, penetrating anguish grip him, my breath caught. For him to feel this, after the amount he had seen of this world, the amount he had engaged in war; I never realized the toll it would take on him. Never imagined that he was sacrificing. And while I didn't see regret there, I saw disgust, self disgust, rip through him, and I knew in that moment what he thought.

I saw it now, too.
The living room was lit only with the hall light, and the colors of his home and the lighting made the room have a sort of blue tinge. He leaned against the counter and I counted three empty beer bottles.

I had never known him to drink more than one. I wondered what he mourned for.

"Go away, Babe," he said, not looking up.

It wasn't harsh. It wasn't said with enough energy to be, but it ripped through me as though he had just sent another bullet flying, but this one was aimed for my heart.

There was something about his voice: disgust, absolute, consuming torment, and resignation. And it wall all directed inward.

"No," I said, then after a moment, "You're in pain."

I stated the obvious.

"You didn't like killing him."

After a scoff and an ugly chuckle, Ranger finally met my eyes.

"No, Stephanie, I fucking loved killing him. I enjoyed watching the blood seeping out of his head, and I liked seeing the life drain out of him and knowing I had done it," he spat it with loathing.

"So you know the monster I am," he continued, quiet, "So what are you doing here?"

I was surprised again. I hadn't expected him to come out and say what was bothering him so quickly, but I was glad he had, because I hadn't realized which part of this made his eyes go so dark. I knew it had made him unhappy, to kill the man, but I thought it was mostly that I had been there. Now I knew differently.

"You think yourself a monster," I stated calmly, "Because you stopped the man who would have stolen everything from me. Who has and would have continued to ruin the lives of strong women, to make their worlds as dark as his own? Who never would have stopped?"

"Babe, I knew the second you looked at me that you could see it too. This, this was just the top of the haystack. I'm dangerous for you. I don't feel emotion like other people. I don't feel regret, or remorse, or even guilt. All I feel is satisfied. I'm not even human."

"But you feel bad about the lack of those emotions," he stayed silent, "You understand how removed you are from it that you don't feel anything in reaction to it. Ranger, you are human. Its not like you don't even notice that you should be feeling those things. You can't feel those things, with the work you did. God, I'm stunned that after working in Delta Force you even think you should feel those things. Most people wouldn't after all that. Don't you get it? You have to protect yourself emotionally, become distanced, to do what has to be done. Ranger, you're not a monster, you're so fucking human that you are torturing yourself."

He stared at me for ages.

I don't know if what I had said had any impact. I don't know if it came through to him. How else could I explain that the mere concern about enjoying killing someone took him immediately out of monster territory? How did I explain that it didn't make me think less of him; it was part of the reason I was so in love with him? How did I tell him that his satisfaction with what was by all means, the confirmation of my safety, didn't disgust me so much as make me feel cherished?

"Babe," he said, and it sounded choked, "You have to leave. I could hurt you too."

He wasn't getting it at all.

"Really, Ranger? You could hurt me?" I walked right up to him and into his space, "Tell me, what was so satisfying about killing him? Was it pulling the trigger?"

"Yes."

"Watching the light leave his eyes?"

"Yes."

"Was it knowing he was never going to hurt anyone ever again?"

"Yes."

"Never going to hurt me again?"

"God yes."
"Was it that it was flesh and brain matter that you could destroy, and it didn't matter who was in the chair?"

"No, it wasn't that," he had slowly, "I wanted to kill him, not just anyone. Him. I wanted revenge. Retribution. I wanted him to know pain."

"But you didn't torture him, Ranger? You put a bullet in his head. Lights out."

He thought for a moment.

"You didn't get pleasure out of the simplicity in the act," I said softly, "Don't you see, Ranger? You got pleasure from killing him because you were taking something ugly out of the world. Something that needed to go. In my mind, that makes you a hero."

His eyes shifted to me hastily.

"Don't call me that."

He sounded breathless, on edge, like I was so close to breaking him. I spoke to push him over the cliff.

"Why is it so much harder to accept that you are a hero than to accept that you are a monster? What darkness do you have that doesn't churn in the guts of the rest of us? I didn't even flinch when you pulled the trigger."

He snapped.

His lips slammed onto mine, and he didn't hold the desire, desperation, or madness like he normally did. And I wanted it. Wanted him crazy and out of control. Because he never let himself be, and my guess was that his secret, his self-restraint, and his control wasn't really about darkness, it was about vulnerability. He pulled back on a gasp and I could feel him shaking against me.

We fell into bed together. I don't know where our clothes went but his restraint went out the window, and before I could even manage to latch my lips to his neck he was pounding into me so hard, so fast, so unlike the last time, that I was coming in seconds. When he followed me, he was roaring and shuddering, and I felt his teeth scraping my neck as he buried his head in my hair.

By the time he had stopped trembling, the light had come back into his eyes and instead of climbing off of me, he settled his head between my breasts.

"Thank you," he whispered, voice rough with emotion, "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"No," I said, stroking my fingers through his hair, "And you never will."

"Why do you trust me, even though I don't?"
"Because, Carlos," I said, and his breath caught in his throat, "I know you like nobody does, don't I? I know you so well that I can make you lose your famed self control. I know you so well," I continued, "That even if you can't, I trust enough in you for the both of us."

Baby, oh the secret's safe with me,

There's nowhere else in the world that I could ever be,

Nobody knows,
Nobody knows but me.

"I love you, Babe."

"I love you too," I answered, "And you can continue to let everybody think you're a monster, if you want. You can pretend you're a hard ass. You can make it look like you kill without any second thought and without discretion. But you and I will never believe it. Never again, Carlos. Nobody knows, but we will."
"We will," he repeated, and this time when his eyes looked into mine, I saw light reflecting back in them, and then I saw nothing, too lost in his kiss to realize that they had eased into deep, relaxed chocolate.

A/N: I hoped you enjoyed this. Please let me know if I should continue. I don't know that I quite captured what I was going for, or that all the paragraphs completely made sense. And I never intended for them to end up in bed together, but oh what happens, happens, does it not? Have a great day and thanks for reading!