They're still not mine
Chapter 8
Stephanie sat on the edge of the bed trying desperately to calm her pounding heart. Dr. Childress was due at the house in less than half an hour and she was terrified. She couldn't understand why her heart was pounding so hard, why her body trembled with adrenaline, why her palms were cold and sweating. Stephanie could barely breathe and she had no idea why. Was she having a heart attack? Had Ranger been right all along when he'd said, "that stuff will kill you, Babe"?
She had never felt that way before. Even when her life was in danger, all the times she had been kidnapped, all the times someone had threatened to kill her, she had managed to control her body, at least somewhat. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't control herself now. It was a horrible, frightening feeling.
A wave of dizziness hit her then and she slid down on the floor, pulling her knees up to her chest and tilting her head back against the bed. Her chest felt hot, but the rest of her body felt cold as ice.
Oh God, don't let me be dying! What's wrong with me?
Tears filled her eyes and she began to sob. The feeling had come out of nowhere. One minute, she was getting ready for her doctor's visit and the next, she couldn't breathe.
God, make it stop! I don't want to die!
She wondered if this was what dying really felt like. It scared her, even more so when she remembered the night with the gun. But then again, the only thing she really remembered from that night was what Ranger had told her. It had been surreal. This, unfortunately, wasn't.
Ranger picked that moment to walk into the room. Seeing Stephanie curled up on the floor, crying and shaking made his stomach lurch. He rushed forward and kneeled down on the floor, pulling her tightly against him. He could feel her heart pounding against him and he wondered what on earth had upset her so badly.
"Babe. Calm down, it's okay," he soothed, running his hands slowly up and down her spine. "Stephanie, what happened? What's wrong?"
"I…don't know…can't breathe…" she gasped through the tears "Chest…hurts…dizzy…"
Ranger's eyes narrowed at her symptoms. Sounded like a heart attack, but he was leaning more towards a panic attack. He had suffered through a couple himself, years ago, and knew how frightening and painful they could be.
"Babe, listen to me," he said, keeping his voice soothing. "I think you're having a panic attack. You'll be okay, I promise."
"Thought it was…heart attack…" she choked, clinging to his arms desperately. "Thought…maybe the gelato was a bad idea."
If he hadn't been so worried about her, Ranger would have chuckled at her words. Instead, he pulled out his cell phone and called Dr. Childress. When the doctor answered, Ranger relayed what was going on. To rule out any physical problems, the doctor told Ranger to get Stephanie to the emergency room. He would meet them there.
Lifting her in his arms, Ranger carried her down the stairs and into the garage. After buckling her into the passenger seat, he ran to the other side and climbed in behind the wheel. He drove one handed, his other hand firmly grasping one of Stephanie's. She was lying back against the seat, her eyes closed tightly. She was still trembling and Ranger's heart nearly broke. It tore him up that he couldn't fix this for her. As far as he could tell, this was the first time Stephanie had ever suffered a panic attack. He wanted so badly to take it away.
Ranger ran three red lights and was going at least 30 miles over the speed limit, but there wasn't a policeman in sight. He pulled in front of the ER entrance at Ocean Medical Center, throwing the car into park and jumping out. In seconds, Stephanie was in his arms and he was walking through the doors.
A doctor and two nurses rushed over, bringing a stretcher with them. Ranger gently placed her on it and took back her hand. Stephanie grasped his hard enough to make him wince, but he didn't try to let go. He felt he had to hold on for both their sakes. He couldn't do much right now; she was in the right place with qualified professionals there to care for her. But at least he could do this one small thing for her and for himself.
"Dr. Childress called to inform us about her," the ER doctor said, pushing the stretcher towards one of the empty rooms. "We're going to hook her up to a heart monitor and perform an EKG to check for a possible heart attack. We're also going to run a few blood tests to rule out a thyroid problem. Has she had any medical problems recently?"
Ranger looked down at Stephanie. Her eyes were wide open and filled with fear. "She was going to meet with Dr. Childress for the first time today for a diagnosis. Possible depression. Nothing else that I know of."
The doctor nodded and moved out of the way so the nurses could draw blood and hook Stephanie up to the heart monitor. "Most likely, it's a panic attack, but we just want to rule out anything else."
Another nurse came in pushing a cart with the EKG on it. The doctor turned to Ranger.
"I'm going to have to ask you to leave the room while the nurses get her into a gown."
Stephanie's eyes widened and she grasped Ranger's hand tighter. "Please don't leave me!"
Ranger gave the doctor a look that told him that he wasn't going anywhere. The doctor finally nodded and left the room.
The three nurses worked together quickly, trading Stephanie's jeans and tee shirt for a very thin cotton gown. They stuck the small, round patches to various parts of Stephanie's body and when they were finished, two of the nurses left the room.
The remaining nurse, who introduced herself as Marjorie, spoke to Stephanie in a soothing voice while she performed the test. Stephanie must have calmed down some, because her death grip on Ranger's hand relaxed slightly. With his free hand, Ranger pulled a chair to the side of the bed and sat down.
"I'm sorry, Ranger," Stephanie whispered, her eyes closing. "I keep causing you trouble."
"You've never caused me trouble, Babe," he promised, reaching out to stroke her hair back. "We just want to make sure that you're physically okay."
Stephanie stayed quiet, concentrating on calming her palpitating heart. The nurse announced that the test was finished and began to remove the patches. She promised that the doctor would be back once he read the test results.
Ranger was silent as he continued to stroke Stephanie's hair. She was relieved when, after a few more minutes, her heart rate went back to normal and the dizziness went away. She was still cold, though, and she shivered.
"Want me to get you a blanket?" Ranger asked. Stephanie nodded wordlessly and he kissed her hand before placing it on the bed. Standing up, he made his way out of the room and to the nurse's station. The same nurse who performed the EKG quickly took a blanket out of the warmer and handed it to him. He was back in Stephanie's room a few seconds later, covering her up.
Taking his seat back, he watched her intently. The adrenaline seemed to have worn off and he could tell that she was asleep. Finally, her face looked peaceful and relaxed despite the jagged tear tracks lining her smooth cheeks. Ranger just held her hand, alternating his gaze from her face to the heart monitor beeping rhythmically above the bed. Thankfully, her heartbeat was strong and steady.
About fifteen minutes passed before another man walked into the room. He was tall and slender, with kind green eyes and short gray hair. He was looking at a chart in his hands, but he looked up a second later.
"Mr. Manoso, I presume?"
Ranger nodded and took the man's outstretched hand.
"I'm Dr. Childress. According to Miss Plum's EKG, her heart is in excellent shape. I didn't think that she was having a heart attack, but you can never be too careful with these things."
Ranger nodded, relieved that she was physically okay. "What about the blood tests?"
"Just a formality. We want to rule out any thyroid conditions, but according to Mr. Brown, she's never shown any kind of symptoms to assume that."
Ranger nodded again, feeling somewhat like a bobble head doll. "So now what do we do?"
Dr. Childress pulled a stool up to the bed and sat down. "I'll need to talk to Miss Plum in depth about everything that's been going on. I need to make a clear diagnosis of depression before anything else. After I get a grasp of the situation, most likely I will prescribe medication and suggest therapy sessions a few times a week."
"No medication," Stephanie grumbled, opening her eyes slightly. Dr. Childress gave her a soft smile.
"Miss Plum? I'm Dr. Childress."
She stared at him for a minute. "You're the psychiatrist, right?"
He nodded and moved a little closer to the bed. "How are you feeling?"
"Tired." Stephanie sighed. "What happened to me?"
"It seems as though you had a panic attack, my dear," he said, his eyes kind. "Do you remember when it started?"
She thought about that for a moment. It had come up all of a sudden, with no warning. "I was getting ready for your visit when my chest suddenly got really hot. My heart started pounding and I couldn't stop shaking. I thought I was dying."
The doctor nodded. "It's a pretty scary feeling, isn't it?"
She nodded. "The worst. I couldn't control it."
"Was this your first attack, Miss Plum?" He asked.
"Call me Stephanie. And yes, I've never felt like that before." She wrinkled her nose. "I don't understand why it happened. I wasn't doing anything. Even when I'm chasing skips or blowing up cars, I've never felt like that."
"Sometimes, there's no reason for them to occur. Other times, something traumatic or unnerving will bring them on." Dr. Childress looked down at his chart. "Would you like Mr. Manoso to stay in the room while we talk, or would you like him to step out for a little while?"
Stephanie swallowed hard and looked at Ranger. "I don't want to keep you from anything important. You don't have to stay if you don't want to."
"You're important, Babe." Ranger assured her. "And if you want me to stay, then I'll stay. It's your choice."
She paused, absorbing his words. "Ranger stays."
Dr. Childress nodded and looked up from the chart. "How have you been feeling the past few months, Stephanie?"
Stephanie paused again to think about that. "Like I'm not myself anymore. Nothing interests me. I don't want to embarrass everyone, so I just try to stay in."
"What makes you think that you would embarrass everyone?"
"Because every time I try to do my job, my mother or my ex has to call me and tell me how much of an embarrassment I am and how I need to find a nice, safe job." Her voice became lower and she took a deep breath to control her tears. "Nothing I do is right. Everyone makes bets on the next time I'm going to screw things up. I'm entertainment."
Ranger cringed at her words. When he told her that during the Slayer mess, he had never meant for her to take it that way. What he'd hoped she got from it was that he and his men loved to be around her. She made them smile, not because she blew up cars or rolled around in garbage, but because she was a genuinely good person who cared about them as people. She could walk into a room and just smile and it was like someone had turned on the lights. He wished that he would have clarified his words when he said them. The thought of her taking them out of context like that and dwelling on it made him sick.
"If those people hadn't said those things to you, how would you feel about your job performance?"
Stephanie shrugged. "I don't know. I know I screw up a lot, but in the end, things seem to work out. Nobody seems to care about that, though. They only seem to see what mistakes I make and point out my errors over and over and over again."
"Do you care about that?"
She was quiet for a while before she nodded slightly.
Dr. Childress pulled a pen out of his shirt pocket. "I'd like to ask you a few questions. Try to answer them as honestly as possible, okay?"
Stephanie nodded.
"I'd like for us to write down a timeline of your life, Stephanie. Come up with as many memories as you can, both positive and negative, that you feel has impacted you and how you are today."
Stephanie blinked, not understanding why this was relevant to her panic attack. Deciding that it didn't really matter anyway, she stopped to think. "Do you want the negative first?"
"Just name the memory and tell me if you think it was positive or negative."
She was quiet for a while, trying to come up with something. Funny how hard it was to remember the easy things when put on the spot like this. "I always wanted to fly."
The doctor smiled and nodded. "To you, is that a positive or a negative?"
"Both, I guess," Stephanie decided, staring at the ceiling. "Usually, my mother gave me a lot of grief for it. Like I should be learning to make a pot roast instead of daydreaming. When I fell off the garage roof, I thought she was going to have me committed."
Dr. Childress wrote something down before looking up again. "Okay, pretend your mother wasn't in the equation. How did wanting to fly make you feel?"
A tiny smile played at the corners of her mouth. "It made me feel special. Nobody else I knew wanted to fly. When Ranger took me skydiving, it felt like I was free."
"So wanting to fly is a positive memory?"
Stephanie nodded and watched as he wrote.
"Any more memories come to mind?"
"I remember spending the night at my Grandma Mazur's house when I was little. That was a positive memory."
"What made it positive?"
Stephanie smiled. "Grandma's a little crazy like me. She doesn't fit into the "Burg" mold and she never wanted to. Speaks her mind and expects others to do the same." Stephanie's forehead crinkled slightly as she spoke. " I remember one time my mother got mad at me for something and I ran away to Grandma's house. Grandma draped a blanket between an end table and the sofa and made a little fort for me to play in. When I was playing, I overheard her on the phone with my mother. Grandma was mad at her for upsetting me and when I went home for dinner, Mom didn't say anything more about it. She acted like nothing had happened."
By the end of Stephanie's story, Ranger had decided to send a dozen roses to Grandma Mazur. She still scared him with her looks and her not so subtle remarks about his "package", but he was grateful for the support she had given Stephanie over the years. At least his Babe had someone to count on growing up.
"Your grandmother sounds like a remarkable woman," Dr. Childress agreed, watching Stephanie's reaction. She just nodded.
"What about your father, Stephanie? Any memories, good or bad, about him?"
Stephanie thought for a minute. "He's pretty quiet. He worked all day before he retired and now he drives a cab. I do remember, though, he would ride the roller coasters with me when the family went to an amusement park. Mom and my sister, Valerie, didn't think that roller coasters were 'ladylike', so they wouldn't go. Mom didn't like that I wanted to go on them, but Daddy didn't care. One time, we rode the biggest coaster in the park eight times in a row." She chuckled suddenly and a sparkle lit up her eyes. "He would raise his arms and scream along with me for the big drops. It made me laugh hearing him like that."
"Sounds like you had a good relationship with your father."
Stephanie nodded. "He never said it, but I think he has more fun with me than with Valerie. She's too much like Mom. In a way, I was kind of like the son he never had. I was too much of a tomboy to be a real 'lady'."
"You don't think that you could be a tomboy and a 'lady' at the same time?"
Stephanie shook her head. "Not according to my mother and not according to Burg rules. You were either one or the other, and I sure wasn't a lady. That was Valerie's department."
"Did your mother ever make you feel like you were less of a person than your sister?"
She sighed at the memory. "All the time. She still asks me why can't I be more like Val. Val's married and has three children. Val can cook and clean. Val doesn't run around blowing up cars and funeral homes." She stopped talking before her voice got too high pitched. The last thing she needed was for the doctor to see her in hysterics. She couldn't handle being locked away in some mental hospital.
"Stephanie, do you think Valerie's a better person than you? Don't think about what your mother has told you, but just think about how you feel."
She paused. Did she really look at Valerie as the superior Plum sister? She was most definitely the superior 'Burg wife'. Stephanie hadn't been able to last a year with that title. She was definitely the superior 'Burg mother'. Even though Stephanie didn't have any children to compare, she knew that her mothering instincts were close to none. Valerie seemed to be born with them. Every doll she owned was perfectly dressed and brushed and babied. Every doll that Stephanie ever had ended up covered with dirt and had tangled hair from the garden hose. If that was any indication of Stephanie's mothering skills, then she was in serious trouble.
"Valerie's better at a lot of things than I am. She's a good wife and a good mother and she doesn't cause trouble and end up the main story on the local news. I guess that makes her superior"
"But why would you think that being a mother and a wife makes her better than you? Do you want to be a mother and a wife?"
"Not anytime soon," Stephanie admitted. "But maybe someday."
"Let's try something," Dr. Childress suggested, drawing a line down the middle of his paper. She watched as he wrote "Stephanie" on one side and "Valerie" on the other. "Why don't you tell me all the words that describe your sister?"
"Perfect." Stephanie said immediately, her voice more than a little bitter. Dr. Childress looked up at her.
"Is that your own word, or your mother's?"
Stephanie sighed. "My mother's."
"I only want your own words for this, Stephanie."
She paused. "Great mother. Great wife. Great cook."
Dr. Childress wrote that down and looked back up at her as if to say "Continue".
Stephanie paused, trying to think. There would have been a time when she would have used "calm" and "serene" to describe her sister, but not anymore. Valerie hadn't been "Saint Valerie" since the divorce. Her forehead crinkled as she tried to think of more.
"Any other words to describe your sister?" The doctor pressed. Stephanie sighed and shook her head.
"I can't think of anything else. That's who Valerie is. A mother and a housewife."
"Okay, now what are some words to describe you?"
Ranger sat forward in his seat slightly, waiting to hear what she would come up with. He had a few words of his own. Remarkable. Beautiful. Fun. Smart. Beautiful. Sexy. Fearless. Beautiful. Caring. Loyal. Beautiful.
The crinkle was back in her forehead as she thought.
"Unpredictable," she finally said.
Dr. Childress nodded and wrote it down. He waited for her to continue.
"Not Burg."
"In your opinion, is that good or bad?"
"Both," she answered immediately. "Bad because everyone is disappointed in me. Good because if I was a typical Burg wife, I would be miserable."
He nodded. "What else, Stephanie?"
She paused. "Open minded."
Ranger definitely agreed with that one. If she had been narrow minded like her mother and sister, then Stephanie never would have become close to all her friends. Himself, the Merry Men, Lula, would never have had the honor of knowing her. It was a trait of hers that he was most grateful for.
"What else?" Dr. Childress prodded.
She was quiet for a long time. Finally, she shrugged. "I can't think of anything else."
Ranger was stunned. Of all the wonderful qualities she possessed, all she could come up with was "unpredictable", "not Burg", and "open minded"? Christ, if she had been any other woman, she would have been bragging about her amazing traits. And rightly so.
Dr. Childress wrote a few things down before looking back up at Stephanie. "Those are all wonderful traits to possess, Stephanie. I'm hoping that after a while, you'll be able to add to your list."
Stephanie fought the urge to snort. She had never really thought much about herself, except for what everyone else had told her. She didn't think, though, that telling the doctor not to hold his breath on that one would be a good idea. He still probably had the power to stick her in a padded room.
"Stephanie, I know you don't want to take any medication, but there are many good options out there in anti-depressants. I'd like to start you out on Lexapro. It's a good choice and there are very few side effects."
Stephanie glanced over at Ranger. He was sitting forward in his chair, watching the emotions flash across her face. "I don't know. Can't you fix me some other way?"
Dr. Childress smiled kindly. "I can't be the one to 'fix' you, Stephanie. That's all up to you. I honestly think that without the medication, it would take you much longer."
"Will you lock me up in the hospital if I don't take the medicine?"
"Are you a danger to yourself or others?"
"No." She whispered. Dr. Childress and Ranger watched her for a second before the doctor spoke again.
"Then no, I don't think you need to be hospitalized. And I can't, nor won't, force you to take your medication. The choice is yours."
Stephanie looked over at Ranger. "What do you think?"
Ranger shook his head slightly. "Not my decision, Babe."
She sighed. Of course, Batman wouldn't have an opinion about the situation. "What side effects are we talking about here?"
Dr. Childress named off a list of various side effects, including headaches, tremors and nervousness, nausea, dry mouth, a decreased sex drive, and difficulty achieving orgasm. Stephanie did snort at that last one. She hadn't had an orgasm in months. At the sound, Ranger smothered a tiny grin.
"And you think it will help me?" She asked, staring at the doctor. He nodded.
"I think it will. Besides the medication, I would like to talk to you some more. Maybe an hour three or four times a week until you're starting to feel better. Then, just twice a week for a while after that."
Stephanie sighed. What the hell, she might as well give it a try.
"Fine. I'll take it."
Big thanks to Alfonsina del Mar and RangerCraving for all the help. You guys are the best. Sorry about the delay, Real Life is being a pain in the bum. I hope you like this chapter. Please read and let me know.
