A/N: Normally, my summers are very slow work-wise, which would leave me with plenty of time to write in the evenings and on weekends. This year has been the opposite. I just worked the most number of hours in an August that I ever have in the 20-some years I've been in this career. Which is good for job security, especially important in these times, but very bad for my progress on this story. I have a good bit of the next chapter written, so hopefully I'll get that wrapped up and posted in the next week.

TPOV

It's 0900 Wednesday morning, and I am trying to plow my way through next month's duty schedule. I really fucking hate this stuff. What I wouldn't give to have Steph back working for us. She was a savant when it came to putting the schedules together. A knock sounds at my door, and I'm not sure if I should be irritated at the interruption or grateful for the distraction. I look up to see Bobby and Les walk in, close my door, and make themselves comfortable in my visitor chairs. Okay, I'm going with grateful for the distraction. Bobby's date with Steph was last night, and I am interested to hear about it. We all knew he was going to have her help him cook dinner. The control room was on alert for a fire or EMS dispatch to her address. Fortunately, it was a quiet night, although I think Binkie and Zip were a bit disappointed at the lack of excitement on their monitor shift.

"So how was your date last night?" I ask Bobby.

"It was amazing," he said with a wide smile.

Before I could ask anything else, Les reached over and slapped Bobby on the back of the head.

"What the fuck, man?" Bobby exclaimed.

"Damn it, Bobby. Didn't you remember the rules?" Les asked.

Both Bobby and I looked at Les like he'd lost his mind.

"We're still trying to get Ranger and Steph together. You shouldn't be messing around with Beautiful."

"Seriously, Les? Do you think that's the only thing that could make a date amazing? I didn't fool around with Steph."

"Oh. Then what made it amazing?"

Bobby looked over at me. "You must have had some talk with Steph Monday night."

I felt dread pool in my stomach. "Shit, man, I didn't mean to make her cry."

"What are you talking about? You made Steph cry?" Bobby looked at me confused.

"It wasn't my fault. She told me Elena recommended she get counseling, and I told her I agreed with Elena."

"And that made her cry?" Bobby asked.

"Well, no… I told her if she was a regular RangeMan employee, it would have been required, and then I might have brought up the other policies we didn't apply to her, and apparently it made her feel bad that we let her skate by without following all the policies, and she teared up a little. But I swear, I wasn't trying to make her cry."

"Chill out, man," Bobby responded. "She wasn't upset about what you said. She said it got her thinking, and she's decided she needs some training. She wants to follow through with some of the stuff that would be required of her if she worked here full-time. She asked if I would help her with a physical fitness program. And she wants us to give her some self-defense training. I mentioned gun range time, and she was open to it. Whatever you said got under her skin, and she's ready to make some changes." Bobby turned to Les. "And that's what made it amazing."

"Well hot damn. That is pretty amazing. We're getting two for one out of this operation," Les said, grinning.

"Two for one?" I asked.

"Yep," Les answered. "Apparently, we're going to get two cranial extractions out of one operation."

I leaned back in my chair and thought about it. This wasn't exactly what I'd thought would happen when I'd proposed this plan, but Les was right. We were getting double the benefit, assuming both Ranger and Steph keep up the forward momentum. I grinned. "Huh! I wasn't anticipating this, but it's a damn good development. So what are your next steps with Steph?" I turned back to Bobby.

"I promised her last night I'd be over at her apartment at 1000 hours today. She said she wanted to avoid running and asked that I help her with alternatives. I told her I felt she needed to incorporate at least some running in her physical fitness plan if she wants to get better at catching skips that take off. She grudgingly agreed, so I'm going to incorporate two days of running per week for now and fill in four additional days with other forms of cardio. I'll give her one day off every week. This morning, I'm going to take her over to the track at the high school and get a baseline assessment for her running. Then I'd like to bring her over here tomorrow, and maybe have her try out the bike and elliptical and get her on some of the weight machines."

"Sounds like a solid plan," I responded, nodding.

"Do you think Ranger would have a problem with us working with her while we are on the clock? I was going to send out an email asking for volunteers to work with her. Should I specify it has to be on our own time?"

"Naw. As long as it doesn't interfere with other duties, I'm sure Ranger will be fine with guys working with her while on the clock. Shit. If us training her prevents just one catastrophe where we have to drop everything to go rescue her, we will have saved more in manpower costs than what you will be spending to train her."

Bobby nodded. We all understood the outlay of resources that occurred every time Steph attracted a stalker or got kidnapped.

"I thought I'd specifically hit up Cal today. I know he goes over to the aquatic center four days a week to swim. I thought he could take Steph sometime, just to see if she'd like that. I think building in some variety will help keep Steph interested," Bobby explained.

"What about self-defense? Who's going to work with her on that?" I asked. "I think we have to be careful because I could see Ranger getting territorial if he sees certain guys on the mats with her, putting their hands on her." I looked pointedly over at Les, and he smirked.

"I hadn't thought that far ahead," Bobby admitted. "I figured I'd be working with her and then rotate who works with us."

"What about Hector?" Les proposed. "Out of all of us, he's closest in size to Steph which might help her be more comfortable in the beginning, and since he's gay, Ranger won't be too concerned seeing them in close quarters."

"Makes sense," Bobby responded with a nod.

"Sounds reasonable," I agreed. Looking at Bobby, I asked, "Will you be talking to Hector, or do you want me to tell him?"

"I'll catch up with him later today and let him know. I'd like to at least spend a little time with her on that tomorrow when she's here."

I pulled up Ranger's calendar in Outlook and noticed a pattern. "Bobby, if Steph is worried at all about running into Ranger when she comes here to work out, let her know he will be out of the building from 0630 until at least 0930 every Tuesday and Thursday for the next few weeks. If she can manage to get here in decent time, she might be able to get a workout in and be out of here before he gets back to the office."

"I'll let her know. She was a tiny bit hesitant to agree to come here so that might help."

"So besides this development, how was your date last night?" Les asked with a grin.

"It really was great. I've missed spending time hanging out with Steph. Outside of that night we went to talk to her about our plan, I hadn't spent any time with her since before the lockdowns started."

"Alright, you two. Dismissed. I need to get this schedule done."

Bobby and Les let themselves out, leaving the door open as they left. I was just starting to make progress on the duty schedule when I hear my door slam shut and look up to see a seriously unhappy individual standing in front of me. I raise an eyebrow in question, although judging from the piece of paper in his hand, I'm fairly certain I know what this is about. Shit!