Disclaimer: I don't own anything, I'm not making any money, and all the wonderful characters belong to the lovely JE

Rating: R

Warnings: References to LMT so consider yourself warned. I'm a babe. Not cupcake friendly, but no Joe bashing in any way.

Thank you very much Stayce for editing.

Title: Welcome Home

What's Real?

I pulled up to the curb at Bessie's and shut off my car. A new stream of tears fell down my cheeks. I needed to pull myself together before going in to see Joe. It was going to be hard enough seeing him and explaining everything, I didn't need Ranger's word on repeat in my head. I hadn't meant to upset Ranger. My question clearly came out wrong, but it was too late to fix it at the time. His words, though touching, weren't said in a touching way. He was harsh, and angry, and cold, and not the Ranger I knew and loved.

I dug in my pocket book and found some mascara. I wiped my face off the best I could, blew my nose on some tissue, and gave my eyelashes two coats. My courage was depleted.

I locked up the car and walked up the sidewalk to Bessie's. Joe was leaned against his SUV, hands shoved in his pockets and one foot propped up on the side of the vehicle. He was in well worn Levis, a navy blue T-shirt, and running sneakers. His cop face was in place, hiding all his emotions, but nothing could hide the dark circles under his eyes mirroring my own.

I stopped a few feet from him, unsure on how to proceed. "Do you want to go inside?" I asked him, trying to hide the tremor in my voice.

He gave me an incredulous look. "Not particularly, Stephanie. In case you've forgotten, your dutiful friend has spread the word of the cancelled wedding. I've already had two women give me questioning looks. I'd rather not deal with it," Joe said.

"Oh," I said, mentally smacking myself in the forehead. How could've I forgotten that every person within twenty miles of the Burg would know about our break-up? I didn't want to deal with the questioning looks, either. That was why I wanted to stay inside RangeMan in the first place. But Joe deserved to have me tell him the truth to his face.

I looked around and spotted a group of my grandmother's friends coming up the sidewalk. They noticed me and started to speed up. "Can we just go for a drive and maybe stop at a park or something?" I asked, my eyes begging Joe to just get in the damn car.

His eyes moved down the sidewalk and quickly pushed off the SUV and moved around to the driver's side without a word. I jumped in and buckled up just as he took off.

We didn't talk as he drove, which was completely out of character for us. Silence was something Ranger and I did. Joe and I did animated talking. And much like lunch with Ranger, this silence was uncomfortable. I could feel the anger and confusion coming off of Joe, and it made the knot in my stomach tighten a bit more. I was going to hurl if we didn't get somewhere quickly so I could get out and walk. Denial wasn't working. I knew why I was here, and I was suddenly feeling like perhaps I rushed having this talk to begin with. I desperately wanted to be back at RangeMan curled up on the couch. I couldn't do what I needed to do. Joe didn't need all the details anyway. He'd be better off not knowing why I accepted his proposal. And I was almost positive he wouldn't want to know anything about me and Ranger.

Joe drove for another five minutes before pulling into a park. It was far enough away from the Burg that I wasn't worried about running into curious people seeking prime gossip. I got out and took a few deep breaths to calm myself. Joe was a little slower getting out. After we watched each other for a few minutes through the front window, he finally removed his seatbelt and climbed out. He walked around the front of the car and waited.

"I … a …" I still felt like barfing. Why did I think I could do this?

"I thought you needed time?" Joe said.

"I do need time. I need time to figure out how I got so lost. I need to find the old me. The only me I knew how to be, until I forced myself to be somebody else," I said on a sigh. "This isn't me, Joe. I don't clean and cook. I eat takeout standing up in the kitchen against the counter. I only clean when I have to. I take my clothes to my mom's house and have her wash them."

"I didn't ask you to change, Cupcake. I was perfectly happy with takeout and standing room only while I ate," Joe said, his eyes softening.

"I know you didn't ask, but I think that's really what you've always wanted. The Burg girl instead of the wild 30 year old that never seemed to want to grow up."

"Steph, I won't deny that I wanted you to quite your job. I won't deny that I was thrilled when you did. Hasn't it been nice to have all the insanity gone? You haven't been shot at or stalked or rolled in garbage in a year! You have to like that," Joe said.

I smiled a little. "I've missed all that to be honest. I know normally a person would be thrilled to have all of that gone from their life, but I haven't been," I said.

"Is it really the job you miss or is it Ranger?" he asked, eyes narrowing just slightly.

It was a fair question, and it was time to start telling the truth. "Joe, I called you today so that I could tell you everything. I could've waited, but I think that it would just be harder. I didn't need time to figure out if I still wanted to get married. I know I don't want to get married. Not right now, maybe not ever. I need the time to find me again, to get back on my own track. I don't know what's going to happen with us. I love you, and I don't think I'll ever stop loving you, but if you don't want me … insanity and all, then I don't think there can be an us," I said, fighting the tears threatening to slip from my eyes.

"Why'd you accept my proposal then, Steph? Why not just say you didn't want to get married? Why not tell me all this a year ago?" Joe asked with an edge to his voice.

And there it was. The million dollar question that I so didn't want to answer honestly.

"The answer is the real reason why we're here isn't it? Why'd you say yes, Stephanie?"

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. There was a golf ball sized lump in my throat, and I was finding it difficult to breath. What kind of person am I, I thought. I couldn't tell him why I said yes. Nobody deserved that kind of heartache. I tried to shake my head no, but the look in his eyes told me I wasn't leaving until he knew. The knot in my stomach tightened a bit more. My head was ringing, my vision was blurred, and my mouth had gone completely dry. I quickly moved to the bench behind me and put my head between my legs.

"The day you proposed I went to see Ranger," I mumbled from my place between my knees.

"Why?" Joe asked.

"I couldn't say yes, when I wasn't ready to choose. I loved you both," I said, sitting up to look at Joe.

Joe's eyes widened and he took a step back. "Loved us both?" he whispered, hoarsely. He ran his hands through his hair with his eyes shut. "You weren't ready to choose? I wasn't aware there was a choosing process? We were together. We'd been together for years. How did you need to make a choice between us? You weren't even with him!" Joe paused, looking at me as if he was just now hearing what I really said. I could see his mind coming to a conclusion. "Were you with him?" he asked, angrily.

"No. Not like that. His life at the time didn't lend itself to relationships. He couldn't or wasn't able to offer me a commitment," I said, realizing how that sounded after it came out of my mouth.

"So you were biding you time until he was able to offer you a commitment?" he spat.

"No. That's not what I meant. It came out wrong. I love you … I just … I love him, too," I said, whispering the last part.

"How can you love somebody you've never been with? Somebody you don't know anything about? He's fucking nuts," Joe shouted.

"Please don't, Joe," I said, quietly.

"Don't what, Steph. Don't call him a nutcase? Don't make you admit you don't know anything about him? Don't make you realize you've never been intimate with this man you claim to love in a romantic sense? Don't what, Stephanie, cause I'm trying to understand how there could be a choice in the first place? How could you need to choose between a man you've been intimately involved with for years and a man you've only had a platonic relationship with?"

This was what I was trying to avoid. Answering his questions wouldn't help. It would just make matters worse. The truth of my relationship with Ranger would hurt. But I knew Joe would push for the answers. "I've known you my entire life. We have a history, and I'm comfortable with you. We know each other's families. We eat the same foods. We watch the same sports. I didn't love you from the first moment I saw you again, but there was the yearning to have you want me. Eventually I fell in love with you, but neither of us was ready for marriage or a serious commitment. We've tried a couple of times and it never worked out. We drove each other crazy.

"Ranger came into my life as a mentor. We weren't really friends since we didn't exactly know each other. He wasn't even himself around me for a long time. I saw what he wanted me to see. He'd let me see glimpses of the non-thug, but never more than that for a very long time. But I still trusted him. I trusted him from day one. That trust grew into a friendship. The friendship grew into more. An attraction developed, and he let me know that he was interested." I paused; wondering how much was going to be too much. "When you and I broke up and ended our first kind of engagement, Ranger and I spent one night together. It's never happened since then, though," I said, looking down. But I knew the power of that one night. I'd been fighting it ever since. Ranger was magic.

"The night you proposed I wasn't prepared for it to happen. I didn't realize you were even ready to make that step. I did know that if I had to make a choice right then and there, I'd choose you because Ranger wasn't ready to offer me anything more than a sexual relationship. But I had to find out. That's why I went to talk to him. I told him you proposed, and he told me congratulations and to be happy," I told Joe.

"And you were hoping he was going to give you a reason to say no," Joe said, reading my mind.

I let out a sigh. "I just wasn't ready to make a choice, but I knew I didn't want to get married. I was hurt and did something incredibly stupid. I used the proposal as a way to erase Ranger from my life. I knew I was making a huge mistake, but I did it anyway. And in the long run all it did was hurt everybody. I'm sorry," I said, tears freely falling down my cheeks. "I'm really sorry, Joe. I never meant to hurt you."

Joe looked at me for a minute, his expression giving nothing away. Finally he gave a small nod. "I know you didn't, but I think you made your choice," he said, quietly.

I shook my head. "No. No, I didn't. There was never a choice. I just fooled myself into thinking there was one. I thought there could be something more between me and Ranger, but there wasn't and there can't be. All I did was destroy the only real thing I ever had. Ranger wasn't real. What we could have had or whatever we did have wasn't real. Not in the sense that we were," I said, miserably.

Joe opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again. His expression was pained.

"Jesus. I'm so sorry, Joe. You don't want to hear about this. I don't know what I'm saying. I'm just babbling."

"No, I don't really want to hear about it, but …" he said, and then stopped, giving his head a small disbelieving shake.

"But, what?" I asked.

He shook his head again. "Nothing. Never mind. I don't even want to know, so I'm not going to ask," he said, looking away from me.

"Know what?" I persisted.

He looked at me again. His eyes were clearly trying to see into my head and get the answers he didn't want to ask. "Why did you come back to me after you spent the night with him?" he asked. "Don't answer that. I don't want to know."

"I interfere with his lifestyle. A real relationship with me would make his life very difficult. What little relationship we already have makes it more difficult. Look what happened with Scrog," I said, answering him anyway.

He gave a humorless snort. "Even an outsider could see what I couldn't. Or maybe it was something I refused to see. I find it hard to believe I couldn't see that you were in love with him, when that wacko could see it," Joe said, shoving his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels. "I guess I always thought it was one sided. I could see how he looked at you, but I ignored how you looked at him. Your complete breakdown when he was shot should have given me a huge clue, and maybe it did, but then you told me you loved me so I wrote it off as reaction to the whole situation. I'd been waiting for so many years for you to finally be able to say the words out loud."

I closed my eyes. I was beyond horrible. At the moment I was able to say the words out loud, but I was still thinking that I loved Ranger too.

"I'm sorry," I said again.

"I know. I'm sorry, too. There was obviously something lacking with us, for you to find it in another man. Really I should have known. I always told you he looked at you the same way I looked at you. I knew it wasn't just a physical attraction for him," Joe said, running his hands across his face. He took his hands down and held one out to me. "Come on, I'll drive you back to your car."

I took his hand as he helped me up. We walked the short distance back to his SUV hand and hand. It was comforting in a way, but there was nothing loving about my hand firmly held in his. He opened the passenger-side door for me, but just before I climbed in, he pulled me into his arms and hugged me. He held me so close with one hand on the small of my back and the other on the back of my head, fingers tangled in my hair. I sobbed into his chest, my fingers gripping his shirt. His breathing quickened and his arms were shaking slightly. This was all my fault. I did this. I destroyed the only real relationship I'd ever had. Sure we had our problems, but he loved me and I loved him and I treated that love like a doormat.

It seemed like we stood there for hours, holding each other. His grip on me relaxed, and I pulled back, looking into his face. He looked so sad, and it broke my heart.

"Come on, Cupcake. Let's get you back to your car."

The drive back was silent, but all too soon we were back at Bessie's, directly in front of my car. He looked over at me as I undid my seatbelt and reached for the door handle. I didn't want to go yet, but I knew it was time. There was nothing left to say.

"So what now," Joe asked, prolonging my departure.

"I'm going back to my apartment, and then I'm going to try and get my life back on track. I'm going to start working for RangeMan again, but beyond that I don't know. It's a start," I said, avoiding his eyes.

"You're going to stay living at Ranger's even after you said there's nothing there?" Joe asked, confusion written all over his face.

"I'm not staying in Ranger's apartment. I have my own three floors below his. Lester moved out, so I would have an apartment," I explained.

"And that's where you stayed last night?"

"Yes," I said, opening the door. "I hope one day we can run into each other and be friends." I closed the passenger-side door and walked back to my car. I could feel Joe's eyes on me, but I didn't look back.

I got in my car and drove back to RangeMan. I pulled into the underground garage and sat in my car for a bit, taking deep breaths and wiping my face off. I couldn't seem to stop the tears from spilling out, though. I finally just gave up and got out of the car. I was half way to the elevator when the garage gates opened. It was Ranger. His eyes were watching me. He got out of his car quickly and was standing in front me. There was a concerned expression on his face. I must have looked awful.

"You okay?" he said, his voice tender.

"No," I said, honestly. "No I'm not, but I will be."

He nodded slowly, pressing the call button on the elevator. "You didn't stay at Bessie's for very long," he said.

"We didn't want to deal with the looks," I said, but then I realized what he actually said. "I didn't think you were still tracking me."

"I've never stopped. I was actually surprised that you never got rid of the pen when you accepted Joe's proposal," Ranger said, stepping into the elevator and pressed the buttons for levels four and five.

"I kept as a reminder," I said, feeling the dull pain in my chest.

"Reminder?"

"Yeah, every time I looked at it, I remembered why I said yes to Joe," I said, looking in Ranger's eyes.

"And why'd you say yes?" Ranger asked.

I shook my head. "It doesn't matter any more," I said as the elevator doors opened. I stepped out and turned back to face Ranger. "I'm sorry about earlier. It didn't come out the way I meant it." The doors started to close, but Ranger stepped forward to stop them. "I didn't mean it to sound like I was trivializing our friendship. I'd never do that. Your friendship means everything to me. I just didn't want to over stay my welcome."

Ranger brushed a finger down the side of my face with his free hand. "That's not possible, but apology accepted," he said, softly.

I gave him a shaky smile. "I'd like to come back to work for RangeMan, if the offer still stands," I said.

"The job's still yours. I never took you off the books. You've been on an extended leave of absence," he said. "Start back up whenever you'd like. Just let Tank know and he can get you all set up." He stepped back into the elevator, and we stood watching each other until the doors closed separating us.