Author: Feather (Flightf)
Warnings: Spoilers all the way through Twelve Sharp.
Disclaimers: I own nothing…JE owns it all….I will return everything when I am finished
Rating (K-M) M (for language)
A/N: This was started from a challenge sent by the Twelve Sharp group. 'Ranger in the hospital of any point of view.' This is 7th in a series of 12. Thanks to everyone who gave me feedback…it is always appreciated.
Also a very HUGE thank you to Melle who has been acting as my editor extraordinaire. Without her my story would be full of creative grammar and would consist of the never-ending sentence. I think that I am trying to set the record for the most use of "and", "but", "or" and of course just the plain commas in one sentence. MagnificentSin…..I salute you! Thanks for being my second set of eyes. I really appreciate your tough love
From the beginning I have never understood my daughter. How do you help someone that you don't understand? We have been home for two hours and I have already visited the cabinet by the sink four times for a tipple and ironed Frank's entire wardrobe and I mean everything. After all you never know who might be in the john with him. How my husband looks is a direct reflection on me. I am already the mother of a bounty hunter; I wouldn't want to be the women whose husband looks like he just rolled out of bed. I know that my family thinks that I am going crazy when I start ironing everything in the house but it calms me down. When I iron, my head clears and sometimes I see things in a new light. Of course my visits to my trusty friend in the cabinet help this process along. Often during these marathon-ironing sessions I talk to God. I wonder why I ended up with a daughter like Stephanie. I look around my house and the pictures catch my eye, we look similar. She has my blue eyes. They are the same shape and color but Stephanie's sparkle in a way that mine never have. Will Stephanie ever give me blue-eyed grandchildren? Will she settle down and have a home? Tonight while I watched her in the hospital I came to a startling conclusion, Stephanie wasn't being stubborn when it comes to marrying. She was in love with both Joe and the man she calls Ranger.
As I gathered all the towels so I could press the creases out, from being folded, and I thought of Stephanie's birth. The first time that I held her in my arms and gazed into her big blue eyes, I knew that life would never be the same. You could tell even then that she looked at the world a bit different.
When she was a toddler I would iron her clothes and send her out to play in the yard with Mary-Lou while her mother and I had coffee. When they came in for a snack, Mary-Lou would be neat as a pin while Stephanie would be covered head to toe in mud and her clothes would be covered in rips. Truth be told I was never much of a seamstress before Stephanie. Mending all her clothes made my stitches neat and evenly spaced. I guess I should be thankful.
At six we had our first run in with Joe Morelli. A day that I will never forget, we had just gotten home from mass and Stephanie was still in her church dress. She had asked Mary-Lou to join us for Sunday dinner earlier in the week. At 5:15 I sent her to the next block to walk Mary-Lou to our house. At 5:57, she walked through the door with Mary-Lou in tow covered with dirt. I took her into the laundry room to take the dirty dress off. I was shocked to find that her panties were missing.
"Stephanie Michelle Plum, where are your panties?" I asked my voice breaking from the shock.
"I forgot them in the garage," Stephanie answered with a disgusted voice, her arms moving in all directions.
"Whose garage? Why would you take your panties off in a garage? What on earth did you get your self into?" I asked with a tome of bewilderment.
"Well, I was on my way to get Mary-Lou and when I passed the Morelli's house. Joe waved me down. He told me that he was going to teach me a new game. I followed him into the garage and he taught me how to play choo-choo. But I left because he wasn't playing fair, he wouldn't let me be the train." She finished with a pout.
"Sweet Jesus." I crossed myself and I picked up the phone to call Angie Morelli.
Then when she was seven and decided that she was Wonder Woman. I humored her by making her a cape out of some spare fabric for her birthday. A month later she decided to jump off the roof to see if she could fly. In the Emergency Room she wasn't crying because she broke her arm, she was crying over a broken heart. Before she fell to the ground she actually believed that she was going to fly and save the world.
I took my job seriously when my girls reached the age where a mother should teach them the tools that they will need to be a good wife and mother. Valerie excelled at these talents, She cooked beautifully, knew the basics about stain removal, understood the rules that ruled our world. Stephanie was another story all together, her room was a disaster, and the only thing that she could do in the kitchen was catch it on fire.
Morelli entered our lives again when Stephanie was sixteen. He was leaving for the Navy and decided to make Stephanie his goodbye to Trenton. His last act before boarding the bus to boot camp was bragging about it on the wall of Mario's sub shop. I was internally joyed when Stephanie ran him over with her fathers Buick two years later.
When Stephanie left for college I had the typical empty nest syndrome but I was also relieved that I made it through raising Stephanie Plum. It turns out these were the years of the calm before the storm.
A few years later my dream came true; my little girl was marrying a lawyer and moving back to the Burg. Finally my Stephanie had grown into a woman the Burg could be proud of. I spent the next year planning a wedding that every girl dreams of. It was only a matter of time before I became a grandmother again. Three months into the marriage the phone started ringing, Stephanie was beating her husband, who was only dressed in his boxer shorts, with a tennis racket. It turns out that Stephanie had caught him on the dinning room table with Joyce Barnhardt.
In the next year or so Stephanie got a good job as a lingerie buyer. She bought a little car that she zipped around the burg in. Her apartment was a disgrace but it was only until she meets a good man to settle down with, I reasoned with myself. Then the bottom fell out of my dream, when she showed up one night for dinner and announced that she had been laid off. Within a week she had decided to be a Bounty Hunter. Another week passed and I was going to daily mass praying for a normal daughter.
As I ironed the last of the towels, I tried to decide what I should start on next. I headed upstairs for the sheets. When I passed my cabinet I decided that one more stop wouldn't hurt.
Tonight when I walked into the Emergency Room I was immediately transformed back to the day when Stephanie learned that she could fly. My little girl's heart was breaking. Frank and I found a corner of the waiting room and waited for news on the man who saved my daughter's life too many times to count. The relief when hearing that Ranger was expected to make a full recovery was evident in her whole body. While they transferred Ranger from recovery to ICU, Frank and I went to tell Stephanie good bye. As we walked towards where she was sitting with Joseph. I noticed the distance between them. They were sitting next to each other but you could tell that they were in different worlds. Joe's eyes were watching Stephanie intently but her eyes were focused on Ranger. He reached over to touch her arm and she turned to look at him, she smiled but it never reached her eyes. When their eyes meet Stephanie immediately looked to other direction. Stephanie stood up as we approached, and Joseph put his arm around Stephanie. Stephanie's body was stiff. She didn't lean into him for support; she didn't pull him closer, what she did do sent warning signals off in my brain. Stephanie shrugged off Joe's arm and left him standing there and walked over to us.
"Stephanie, we are headed home now." I hugged her as I said this, trying to put all the love and the words that I can't say into it. When we pulled away I saw the tears glistening in her eyes. I took her hand and gave it a squeeze.
"I am glad that your friend Ranger is going to recover. Make sure you bring him to dinner, when he feels better. I'll make a nice pot roast and a pineapple upside-down cake. He'll need his strength for all his wounds to heal. " I took a step back while Franks took Stephanie in his arms, he pulled her into a hug and whispered something into her ear.
"Thanks, Daddy" Stephanie replied softly.
Frank took my arm and we started to walk down the hall. I turned and caught Stephanie's eyes "Your grandmother wants to stay here for a while longer. I'll send your father back with the cab to pick her up later. Try to keep her away from the Morgue.'
As I was headed back down the stairs my arms full of sheets the phone started ringing. I dropped the sheets onto the table, and made a pit stop at the cabinet by the sink. I needed some courage to answer the phone.
