NOTE: I want to start with a huge, resounding thank you to everyone that left me feedback. I didn't post the first chapter until 6am PST and by the time I woke up at 11am I already had six reviews. If I haven't written you personally to thank you, please know that I am grateful and that your feedback is deeply appreciated. This is certainly the best return for my effort I've received on a fan fiction story in a very, very long time.
Secondly, I've already started on the third chapter, and who knows, maybe I'll have it finished tonight. I hope you don't mind that chapter two rehashes some of chapter one's content, but I figured Stephanie had a right to speak for herself.
Again, pathos, pathos, pathos.
Once more, I'm a whore for your love (or even hate, because I'm sick like that), and your reviews fuel the creative monster. Feel free to point out mistakes, grammatical or otherwise. I try to edit my own stuff, but I'm in too much of a hurry to wait for a beta to go through it.
If I catch any minor typos or grammatical errors, I'll be fixing them and uploading the corrections. If you've been kind enough to add me to your Author Alerts and you're getting bombarded with UPDATE notices that aren't new chapters, please know that they are not major changes to the chapter, merely corrections. The text will not be changing.
SPOILERS: Twelve Sharp references.
RATING: This is a kiddie free zone. While this chapter is free of smut, adult situations and dirty language abound. I'm not sorry.
CHAPTER TWO:
Stephanie wanted to pull over to the side of the road. Her breath was gasping in and out of her open mouth and she wasn't sure if she wanted to pull over to sob uncontrollably or to throw open her door and revisit her dinner with a bout of gut-wrenching vomiting.
The blank face was her first defense, but it was really starting to wear thin. Learning to use it effectively had been like putting herself through emotional boot camp but she'd finally managed it. Convincingly, she liked to think, and it was with no small amount of satisfaction that she turned it on Ranger full force every time they came face-to-face. It was doubly satisfying when she could see his own blank face slipping when confronted with hers. You'd have to know Ranger well to see the slip but it was there, in the minute clenching of his jaw, the tension around his eyes, the polished cadence of his voice.
It had always intrigued her the way he would slide between 'Ghetto Ranger' and 'CEO Ranger'. She got the feeling that he was really a cross between the two and that the extremes were just another way to keep those around him guessing. The whole fucking Man of Mystery bit.
With a face-twisting grimace she acknowledged that her blank face routine wasn't the only thing wearing thin.
Who the hell does he think he is? she snarled mentally. What the fuck did he think he was doing, following her around, poking his nose into her private life when he'd made it perfectly clear that there was no place in his for her?
This wasn't the first time she'd caught him at it, either. Far from it, in fact. She rarely spotted him at it, but the tingling in the back of her neck that indicated she was being watched was only accompanied by a flood of warmth straight to her doodah when Ranger was the perpetrator. Fuckin' mutinous hormones, she cursed and reached for her iPod.
Stephanie rolled to a stop at a red light and chose a playlist from the screen. It was titled Fuck Ranger and it managed to fuel her anger while simultaneously calming her down. She'd found her own way into the 'zone' and it was often a result of her battered emotions that were constantly riding The Batman rollercoaster that was her relationship, or lack thereof, with Ranger.
Woody had introduced her to death metal after a late night of pizza and beer with the Merry Men five months back. Being surrounded by hard bodies dressed in black had been a little too much for her strained emotions that night and she'd managed to down most of a pitcher of beer. It was a well known fact that Stephanie didn't hold her liquor, malt or otherwise, particularly well.
"You need a ride, Darlin'," Woody had said as she stumbled coming out of Pino's, almost tumbling down the steps. Woody had probably drunk as much as her, but being built like a brick wall obviously gave you a little more to work with. He took her elbow and led her to a black RangeMan Bronco. Lester and Bobby climbed into the back as Woody opened the passenger side door and helped her up into the seat.
"I'll have one of the guys bring your car home when I get back to RangeMan," he said, climbing in beside her.
Woody radiated southern gentleman, so it was a bit of a shock that he had some band called God Dethroned blasting out of the stereo system. Part classically fueled melody blended with eat-your-face lyrics growled at pounding volumes were a combination Stephanie wouldn't have expected to like, but it seemed to fit her mood perfectly.
The next day at work, Stephanie had asked Woody to give her the names of any other similar bands and had proceeded to sample as many as she could find. Her iPod was now bursting with bands that had names like Cannibal Corpse and Necrophagist. It made Godsmack sound like Brittany Spears.
Tonight was the first time she'd acknowledged she knew he was following her around, at least to him. She'd been oh-so careful not to let her eyes drag over his body like a caress as her headlights had picked him up out of the dark. She laughed viciously to herself at the memory of his expression as she'd pulled away. He looked like he'd been kicked in the balls, blank expression nowhere in sight.
Stephanie was tempted to disable the LoJack tracker she knew was affixed to her car somewhere. She'd been around at RangeMan long enough now to know what she was looking for, but the trouble just seemed like too much. As soon as she went back to work she would either be ordered directly to reactivate it or it would just magically turn itself back on before she left for home. It was with small consolation that she'd learned all the guys had one on their private vehicles.
Ranger wasn't supposed to be using it to track her for his own personal reasons, however, and the invasion of her privacy was irksome. And, she admitted mentally, she hated herself for the little voice in her head that reveled and said, 'He can't let you go.'
#
Six Months Earlier
"Shit, Cupcake. Am I supposed to be feeling relieved?"
Stephanie chuckled and reached for Joe's hand, threading her fingers with his. She turned her head to look up at him and smiled. "Yes."
Joe looked down at her and his smile matched her own. "Good, 'cause I do. I'll admit that I thought I was going to have a coronary for a second there, but it seemed more like habit than anything else."
They were standing in Pino's parking lot, leaning against her Miata, and it was the last time Stephanie could remember feeling hopeful about her love life.
"Seems to be the theme of our relationship. I don't want to be anyone's habit, Joe. And I certainly don't want you to be mine. I think we're both worth more than that."
Joe released her hand and wrapped his arm around Stephanie's shoulders, pulling her tight against his side. She settled against him and it was the first time in a long time he'd touched her without it causing anxiety to curl in her belly. She looped her arm around his waist.
"I am going to miss the hot sweaty monkey sex, though," he mused thoughtfully and she laughed outright.
"Yeah, it was pretty fucking amazing," she agreed.
They sobered and Joe's arm tightened slightly before he said, "Are you going to tell him?"
Stephanie didn't try to pretend she didn't know what he was talking about. They were finally over and she was done lying, to him and herself. She considered her next words for a moment, though, before answering.
"Yes," she started, drawing the word out slowly. She sucked in a harsh breath and pressed her face against Joe's chest. "But I'm terrified. Ranger doesn't do relationships."
Joe stiffened slightly. "Then what the fuck has he been trying to accomplish all this time? He wants you, but not enough to have you? That sounds like bullshit. I've seen the way he looks at you."
"With the blank face?" she queried, only slightly sarcastic.
A quick maneuver had Stephanie facing Joe. He tipped her chin up with a finger and met her gaze shrewdly. "No, like he's a starving man and you're the best meal anyone ever offered him. Like he'd take bullets or invade foreign countries for you."
Stephanie knew Ranger would take bullets for her. The incident with Scrog in her apartment was still fresh in her mind even after all these months after the fact. She was hoping it was more than loyalty and friendship that had prompted him to do it. More than his responsibility toward Julie. There was something that she wanted Joe to be sure of, though, before she went to Ranger at all.
"Joe, I want you to know I'm not leaving you for him. That this isn't about me jumping from a relationship with you into one with Ranger. I'm doing this for us; to give us a chance to find what we're both looking for."
He smiled and pushed a stray curl behind her ear, his eyes tender. "I know, Cupcake. I'm just glad you had the guts to do it. I don't think I would have." His expression sobered and he narrowed his eyes. "But don't change the subject."
Stephanie groaned and let her forehead drop against Joe's chest. "I don't know what I'm doing!" she moaned.
Joe's strong arms wrapped around her in a tight hug and she hugged him back. She felt his mouth against her hair and tightened her arms. "I wouldn't worry about it, Cupcake. The man would be a fucking idiot to turn you away."
#
Stephanie drove straight to the RangeMan building on Haywood after parting with Morelli at Pino's. Her hands were sweating and the cashmere of her sweater was clinging to her skin.
She pulled into the parking garage, careful to park her car so that the guys in the control room wouldn't be able to see her too clearly while she tried to pull herself together.
It was February but she'd had the top of her Miata down as she drove to try and keep the nervous sweat she was in from ruining her outfit all together. Fumbling nervously in the contents of her purse, she pulled out a stick of deodorant and quickly swiped her under arms. She flipped down her visor and checked her face. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold air and her hair was tousled, but it didn't look bad. Her mascara, three coats for courage, was perfect and her blue eyes were bright.
A quick swipe of minty pink lip gloss over her mouth and she was as ready as she was going to be.
Shooting a little finger wave at the camera, Stephanie boarded the elevator and waved her key fob in front of the sensor while hitting the button for the seventh floor.
Ranger's apartment was quiet as she let herself in, locking the door behind her and dropping her purse and keys on the sideboard.
She could see light coming from the kitchen and, after a deep breath, headed in that direction.
Ranger was leaning against the counter, his gun and a plate of sandwiches at his elbow, muscular arms folded across his chest. The trademark blank look was firmly in place.
"Yo," he said by way of greeting and she smiled at him. He looked good enough to eat in his tight black t-shirt and SWAT cargos. He must have just come upstairs because he was still wearing his gun belt and boots.
"Yo, yourself," she answered and fetched herself a bottle of water, trying to gain a moment.
Now that she was here the words didn't seem to want to come out. She couldn't even think of what to say.
Maybe she would try for seduction. 'Ranger,' she'd breathe, pressing herself against him. 'I'm a free woman. Take me now.' The thought conjured a ridiculous image of her wearing a Joyce Barnhardt-esque outfit and she had to fight the urge to shoot water out of her nose on a laugh as she took a long swallow.
The silence stretched out and when Ranger lifted a brow at her she knew it was all she was going to get out of him and decided to press forward.
She put her water bottle on the counter, took a deep breath, and dived in, saying the first thing that jumped to her lips. "I left Joe."
There, that wasn't so hard, she thought. Neutral, to the point, and best part, getting it out of the way boosted her courage for the next phase. She felt a weight lift off her shoulders.
Fear and doubt were having a raging fist fight with hope and excitement in her chest as his face remained impassive.
"Left him where?" he asked finally.
Stephanie sliced the air with her hand. "Left him. Forever."
The tension was killing her and she had to touch him. Usually Ranger was physical with her, even if it was just a brush of his fingertips against her cheek or his hand resting on the back of her neck.
The blank face and expressionless voice were getting to her. She closed the distance between them and reached out, placing her hand on his forearm. His skin was warm over the rock hard muscle, the fine hairs tickling her fingers. There was no reaction to her touch. She could smell him and all she wanted was for him to pull her up against his chest. To give her his thinking-of-smiling smile.
"On-again, off-again," he said and his voice was a dead thing.
Confusion rippled through her. What was going on? He was rarely ever this cold with her, and with her hopes high it was starting to really scare her.
Stephanie shook her head slightly. "No. Just off." She let her hand slide off his arm, retreated back to the counter across from him to retrieve her water bottle. She took a long pull from the open top, wishing it was something stronger. A beer or a shot of whiskey. Something to drown the albatross taking off in her stomach.
She used the moment to gather herself, attempting the blank face. She'd never admit it to anyone, but she'd been practicing it in the mirror. She'd think about all the things that tended to make her emotional, even things that would make her cry, and would force them behind a distant expression. It felt like it was coming easier, but trying it on Ranger was more difficult than it would ever be on a skip or her mother.
A ragged sigh dragged out of her and she met his eyes again. "It couldn't work between us. He wants the 'Burg wife. I want to jump off the garage roof with my arms spread wide." She couldn't keep her lips from smiling at the thought but a stress headache was trying to bring her down and she gave in, rubbing at the tension between her brows.
"It went alright, actually," she continued. "I did it at Pino's." Eating fanatic that she was, she'd managed to splatter herself with some pizza sauce and she gestured at it vaguely. "I thought he was going to flip."
"Didn't he?"
She laughed at the memory, encouraged by the twitch of his lips. "I thought he would," she replied. "That's why I did it at a public place instead of his house or my apartment. He clenched his beer bottle so tight I thought it would explode, but then he just sort of slumped into his seat and the moment of explosion passed.
"He asked me if I was sure. He said he loved me. I told him I loved him too, and that this didn't mean I didn't want us to be on good terms, but I couldn't be what he wanted. He wants a 'Burg wife, and if that's what he wants it's what he deserves." The thought of settling for an existence that scared the bejesus out of her brought out a shudder she couldn't repress. "God, I can't cook and I don't want to. I sure as hell don't want kids that don't double as hamsters. And the ring- Well, the ring at this point is completely negotiable."
It was time to shit or get off the pot, she decided and approached him swiftly before her courage could abandon her. She moved close and leaned around him to place her water bottle next to his Glock before putting her hands on his folded arms. He seemed relaxed but she felt the slight tightening of his muscles beneath her fingers. He was so gorgeous and the smell of his Bulgari mixed with that subtle scent that was all Ranger was intoxicating, making her control slip.
Stephanie locked her eyes with his, feeling the intensity of his stare. His eyes were almost black and she swallowed. "Ranger," she said and her voice was barely above a whisper. "I don't want to be with Joe."
Short of saying, 'I love you more than birthday cake and don't ever want to be with anyone else,' Stephanie was sure she'd made her point pretty clear. She waited expectantly, her breath frozen in her lungs.
A moment dragged by achingly slow and when his face remained blank and he finally moved, taking her wrists in his hands, she felt dread fist around her heart, squeezing until she wasn't even sure it was beating anymore.
Ranger pushed her backward, away from him, very gently, his hands firm on her wrists. Queen of Denial, she focused for a moment on the contrast of his skin on hers, dark on light.
"I'm proud of you, Babe."
Blank face. Blank voice. He released her wrists and she couldn't stop her hands from dropping lifelessly to her sides.
This is what getting kicked by a horse feels like, she thought and knew her face was probably mirroring the feeling. No, she corrected, this is what watching Ranger get shot felt like, except instead of taking two to the vest and a few flesh wounds it was like watching the bullet hit him right between the eyes.
This was watching her family fed into a wood chipper. She was going to throw up. Or pass out. Maybe have an aneurism and die on the spot.
Black dots swam in front of her vision. The pizza and beer she'd shared with Joe was rolling in her stomach like a ship in a maelstrom. The black dots and Ranger's impassive face swam in a sea of tears and Stephanie couldn't contain the sudden sob that came out on a choking breath.
She ran, barely coherent enough to grab her purse and keys on her way to the door. She slammed into it with her shoulder, fumbling desperately with the locks and almost fell into the hallway beyond. The elevator doors were closed and strangely menacing. She couldn't wait.
Gasping, gagging, Stephanie threw open the door to the stairwell and took the stairs two, three at a time, jumping while clutching the rail. Some distant part of brain was desperately hoping none of the guys in the control room were ones she knew well. It was late enough that her usual Merry Men were probably on four in their studios or in their own homes somewhere else. She didn't want to run into anyone and worried if she did that they'd break their necks when she plowed into them.
She hardly remembered getting to the garage and wasn't even aware of it until she came up hard on the asphalt, tripping over her own feet as she crashed through the door. Her hands stung from the fall but she scrambled to her feet, desperate to be away.
She wasn't sure at that point what was worse; Ranger coming after her or Ranger just letting her leave.
Stephanie could feel her mouth was wide open in a soundless scream and tears were falling freely from her eyes. She had her keys in her hand and somehow managed to get the right one in the driver's side lock. She was hitting the button on her key fob desperately as she started the car, willing the gate to open, and she tore out of the garage onto Haywood Street like Satan himself was cracking the whip at her heals.
It was an appropriate comparison. Stephanie felt like a piece of herself, the best part, was sentenced to an eternity of torture in the darkest corner of hell.
#
She really didn't get it. The worst she'd expected was for Ranger to remind her he didn't do romantic relationships and she would have to accept that friendship, and enough sexual tension to choke a hippo, were all he could offer her.
Stephanie didn't do casual sex, but it had become blaringly obvious that what she did and didn't do often walked a thin line where Ranger was concerned.
Her love for him was like the blazing heat of a million suns, and when she'd watched him fall beneath the barrage of Scrog's bullets, it had felt like her heart was being torn from her chest. If he died, she thought she would too, with or without Joe trying to pull her together.
Finding he was going to fully recover had been like having a defibrillator jump start her dying heart. And then he'd ripped it out of her. He'd shut her out completely with one simple phrase, one that usually warmed her, and a little push from his hands.
Admitting that she wanted him, a relationship with him, had caused him to exact a death sentence on their entire personal relationship. She couldn't think about it without getting nauseous.
She struggled to remind herself that it wasn't her fault. She refused to blame herself for being honest about what she wanted. Accepting the consequences of that honesty was almost more than she could bare, but by the morning after Ranger had rejected her, she had a plan to get on with her life.
A life without Ranger.
The desire to wallow in bed had been strong come Saturday morning. Maybe she'd cry until noon and then stuff herself with TastyKakes for the remainder of the day while watching Ghostbusters on loop.
That plan had plenty of appeal, but the heartbreak had stoked a fire somewhere inside of her that wasn't ready to lay down and die.
Stephanie hadn't lied when she'd told Joe she hadn't left him for Ranger. She'd left him so they could both pursue what they wanted without getting in each other's way. She'd left him because she loved him and didn't want to lose him completely. His friendship was too valuable to her for her to risk losing it because they couldn't stop fighting about what the other wouldn't concede.
So that was okay. It was time to do as Ranger did and compartmentalize her emotions and deal with the issues that were in her power.
First off, she didn't want to quit her job at RangeMan. The benefits were too good and her growing friendships with her co-workers were going to be important to keeping her head on straight. Not to mention that the money was good and steady and she hadn't had to scrounge for rent or food money since she'd started working there.
If she was going to continue working for Ranger, she was going to have to get her blank face fully up to par because right now, it was seriously lacking.
There was only one way she could think of to really make it work. Not denial. Acceptance.
Dragging herself out of bed, she stumbled wearily into the bathroom feeling like she had a hangover from the night spent sobbing into her pillow and she forced herself to meet her own gaze in the mirror.
Not pretty. Her hair was everywhere. Three coats of mascara had turned her into Roscoe the Raccoon and her eyes were puffy and red. Scowling at her reflection, she whipped a brush through her hair and tied the whole mess back into a knot on the back of her head. She scrubbed her face and brushed her teeth.
Then, battling nausea and dread, Stephanie confronted the entire horrible ordeal and any others she could think of that had ever made her angry or hurt. Her emotions were so close to the surface it didn't take more than a moment for everything to begin welling up once more, threatening to choke her. She let it all come, let the dread and the horror and the terrible pain fill her completely, and then she locked a little of it away.
Beneath the surface it was all there, but little by little she managed to school her features into a blank mask. She forced herself to confront it all, accept that it was there, and cover it up.
By Monday morning she felt like she'd been hit by a train, but there was a distance from the pain that she couldn't even remember having actually achieved at any point in her life. Yes, the pain was real, and it was there, and it was terrible. But no one else had to see it.
The first week had been punctuated with carefully concealed crying jags in the bathroom. She stocked up on eye serum to battle her perpetually swollen eyes and enough Visine to keep Mooner and Dougie looking sober for a year. She went through mascara at an alarming rate. But no one saw. No one knew.
Another week dragged by, and then a month. She threw herself into getting in shape. If she was going to continue working as a bounty hunter for Vinnie and doing distraction jobs for Ranger, she needed to start taking the whole experience more seriously.
Joe had been right. She didn't have any applicable skills. She'd been flying by the seat of her pants, depending on Ranger to bail her out of the big messes and her luck for what little success she managed.
The cops had a number of betting pools based on her misadventures and she knew that no one was ever surprised to see her haul in a pathetic excuse for a criminal looking like she'd been dragged through a dumpster.
There were plenty of resources available to her and if she would just pull her head out of her ass, she figured she could turn into an effective BEA and reduce her comic relief status to a minimum. Making people laugh was great. Being laughed at was another matter entirely.
Two months into her training regime she still hated her gun and wasn't particularly enthused to use it on anyone, but she wasn't afraid of it. Lester assured her a respect for her weapon and the damage it could inflict on others or herself was perfectly healthy. Being afraid of it was not. It was a tool, its purpose to help her protect herself and others. Nothing more, nothing less.
She took to wearing it on her belt at all times. She put cookies in her cookie jar and her gun on her bedside table.
Bobby made it his personal mission to teach her self-defense that went beyond hitting someone with her purse or kneeing a guy in the nuts. He often recruited other Merry Men to the cause and it was pretty satisfying for her to execute disabling moves on guys that would put Schwarzenegger to shame.
As her skill level increased and her fitness improved, so did her confidence. Maintaining the blank face became easier every day, and after a long heart-to-heart with Mary Lou, the pain receded to take up residence somewhere in the back of her heart where it couldn't creep up on her quite as quickly.
At that point she had a jarring realization that having skill still didn't make her immune to blatant stupidity. It was a realization she had while laying flat on her back in a skip's front yard, bleeding from the buckshot spray she hadn't been able to avoid when she dove for cover after the ominous ratchet of a shotgun had sounded from the other side of the door.
Her favorite leather jacket had been destroyed but she figured it was a fair trade for it having taken the brunt of the damage.
Her favorite Merry Men made appearances during the two days she was laid up in a hospital bed, bringing her flowers, chocolates, and Lester, bless his heart, brought her three boxes of Butterscotch Krimpets.
It was Lester that sat next to her when Ranger came to check on her, maintaining the same emotional distance he did when one of his men was injured. She'd been surprised at how easy it was to maintain the blank face even as her heart ached for him. She wanted to hold out her hand and have him come to her, gather her to his chest, and kiss her face in the tender way she remembered so poignantly. But he didn't reach for her and she didn't hold out her hand. He left the room and she smiled at Lester, leisurely eating her TastyKake even as a hole opened up beneath her and swallowed another piece of her heart.
Chalking the whole thing up to learning experience, Stephanie decided it wasn't overkill to always wear a flak vest on take-downs, to stand to the side of a door after she'd announced herself, or to make sure she always had adequate back up. Wonderfully, she hadn't been shot since. Certainly shot at, but not wounded. She hadn't had any more destroyed cars. She let the Merry Men handle the big cases and took a depraved pleasure in thwarting Joyce Barnhardt's attempts to bring in skips again and again.
Except for the gaping, ragged hole in her heart, life was pretty good.
Even her friendship with Joe was satisfying. They didn't fight and it turned out Joe was almost as good at friendship as he was in bed. Go figure.
Now if she could only shut up her mother life would be somewhere in the ballpark of bearable.
#
Present
The light turned green and Stephanie continued through the intersection, death metal blaring out of her speakers. She didn't turn it off until she pulled into the parking lot of her apartment building, resigned to parking in the spot across the lot near the dumpster.
She doubted the ancient inhabitants of her concrete block building would hear anything short of her car exploding, but there were a few young families in the building that might not want their teeth rattled out.
The days of being stalked by any number of crazies seemed to be behind her, but Stephanie had adopted a better-safe-than-sorry mentality and she pulled her stun gun, fully charged, out of her purse before stepping out of the car and locking it carefully behind her. She scanned the parking lot for out of place cars as she crossed to the lobby, holding her car keys in her left hand and the stun gun in her right.
Lately she'd been good about taking the stairs, but the FMP's on her feet gave her a good enough excuse to board the elevator and she relaxed against the car's wall on the short trip up. It was a little after one in the morning, so Mrs. Bestler wasn't doing her elevator attendant bit. Normally Stephanie found it amusing, but tonight she just wanted to get to her apartment without running into anyone.
The elevator chimed and she pulled her Sig out of her purse before stepping into the hallway. She unlocked her apartment quietly and did a quick walk-through before locking the door.
Stephanie kicked off her heels and carried her purse into the kitchen so she could plug her electronics into their various chargers. She carried her gun into the bathroom and took a quick Bulgari shower and then slipped into one of Ranger's black t-shirts left over from another life. When it came to Ranger, even as angry at him as she was, she was a glutton for punishment.
Stephanie double-checked that her window was locked, placed her gun on the bedside table before climbing under the covers, and quietly cried herself to sleep.
#
YO: The next chapter should have more dialogue and some action. The Merry Men aren't nearly as oblivious as they've been pretending and Ranger is due for a butt kicking. Whether or not this will actually involve any swinging fists has yet to be determined. And what do you think? Should Diesel get a cameo? I've got a real soft spot for Diesel.
