I hope you all had a fabulous weekend. I feel mine was fairly productive, even though I didn't get as much school work done as I would have liked.

Chapter 54

Sunday morning, I was woken by the alarm I'd set to make sure I wasn't late for my video call with Imogen. After that first call when I'd been late and it had caused a recurrence of her self-doubt and anxiety, we'd all agreed that the timing of the call did not work. Being a weekday it meant that if something came up with work, I would be easily side tracked at miss the window before Imogen needed to in bed, so we'd moved it to Sundays. First thing in the morning for me, meant it was a little while after lunch for Brandon and Imogen, which worked out well for both our schedules as I tried to take Sunday for myself and I knew Brandon and Imogen preferred a lazier schedule to reset before the busy work/school week. Usually, I would have already been awake and dressed after my morning run by the time my five to eight alarm went off signalling it was time to log into my computer.

Not today.

Thanks to my night time excursion to locate Tank, Bobby and Lester and send them back to Rangeman to deal with whatever situation had occurred that was out of Vince's hands, I was dead to the world when the obnoxious beeping interrupted my exhausted, dreamless sleep. For several seconds, I just lay there, staring at the alarm and trying to recall why I would torture myself by setting it to wake me up after the night I'd just had. Until, that is, I remembered what day it was and the fact that I had an appointment to keep.

"Shit," I muttered, hauling myself out of bed to kill the temptation to just roll over and go back to sleep. Rubbing my face in an attempt to wake myself up, I padded into the bathroom and took care of my usual morning business. As I was washing my hands at the sink, I caught sight of myself in the mirror and groaned. I looked like I hadn't slept in a week and there was no way I would be able to tame the rat's nest that was my hair in the next few minutes before I was meant to be staring down a camera lens to catch up with Brandon and Imogen.

I had a choice to make: Either face them and accept that I looked like shit or delay the video chat and shower. It was barely even a choice. A shower would not only assist with the detangling of my hair, and – hopefully – the way my face looked so haggard, but it would help me feel more human and awake. Nodding to myself, I returned to the bedroom where I'd left my phone and shot off a quick Skype message to Brandon to let him know that I would be online a little later than usual, being sure to let him know that I was okay, just overslept and needed some time to wake up, so that neither he, nor Imogen worried that I was accidentally late or avoiding them for whatever reason. Brandon acknowledged my request with a thumbs up, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Half an hour later I was showered and dressed, my hair was dried and styled, and I'd done my best to cover up the dark circles under my eyes. I poured myself a cup of coffee from the pot I'd set to brewing before my shower and took it and my laptop into the sofa in the living room. I'd only just logged in and was taking a sip of liquid gold before I hit the icon for the video chat when the computer started singing out the now familiar incoming-call tone. I guess they'd been waiting for me to appear online.

"Hey!" I greeted, giving them a little wave as their faces appeared on the screen.

"Hi Steph!" Imogen enthused as her father just smiled and waved from over her shoulder. "Are you awake now?"

I smiled and nodded. "I had a very early morning excursion to help out a friend, so I lost a couple of hours of sleep," I explained. "I was still asleep when my alarm for our catch up went off and when I caught sight of myself in the mirror I knew I had to take a little extra time so I didn't scare you both off once and for all."

"You wouldn't have scared Dad off," Imogen said definitively, puffing out her chest with pride. "He's fearless."

"Not fearless," Brandon argued. "Just sensible."

Imogen made a face and I couldn't help but laugh. She had such idealistic views of her father that I hoped she never had to learn otherwise. She already knew too much about her mother's true nature and look how much it had affected her psyche. I'm not saying that Brandon had a similarly sinister past, but knowing what I knew about the things people find themselves doing in order to survive in the military, I felt like it was better leave Imogen to her rosy visions of her father for as long as possible rather than shattering them by pointing out his flaws, and the morally ambiguous things he might have done in the past.

I could see a lot of myself in the child, which I think helped to draw me in and want to help her as much as possible. We were both struggling under the weight of damage caused by our mother's actions but were working through the issues in the best way possible. I'd had several conversations with my own mother in the past few weeks which had helped to iron out a few of the kinks in our relationship so that we could communicate on a more adult level, rather than her making me feel like I was a disobedient child every time I did something she didn't approve of. I knew that Brandon would never be willing to let Imogen speak to her mother in the same way to confront her for her abandonment, but I hoped that with time and therapy she would be able to get past it and live a happy and healthy life.

"So, tell me about your week," I requested, sipping more of my coffee. I may be feeling a lot more human than I had when I woke up, but that didn't mean my brain was completely engaged yet. I still needed some time to get all systems back online. Getting Imogen to jabber on about her school work and friends would hopefully allow me time to boot up and get my brain in working order.

Two hours later we had worked our way through updates on her school work, her extra curriculars, and the soccer game she'd had yesterday, along with an extensive discussion about what age was appropriate to start dating – apparently there was a new boy in her class that she liked, but Brandon was adamant that she wasn't allowed to have a boyfriend until she was thirty. We'd also talked about how my progress was going on both the professional and personal fronts. Imogen was very interested to know if I had a new boyfriend yet since I obviously wasn't going to get back together with 'that Ranger guy'. I'd endured her questioning for several long minutes until Brandon had decided to have mercy on me and change the topic to my training, requesting a full audit of what I was currently doing to keep up with the skills he'd taught me.

Gratefully, I'd just started to list all the activities I was undertaking and where I was at with each of them when there was a knock on my apartment door.

"Hold up," I interrupted myself. "Someone's at the door."

"That's alright," Brandon said, glancing at his watch. "We should let you get on with your day anyway. You can email me your progress report later."

I rolled my eyes at that. "Sure thing, sir," I said sarcastically. "Do I need to get my teachers to sign off on my advancements?"

He knew I was joking, but it had never stopped him from treating it like a legitimate question before, so why would he start now? "Actually, that would be a good idea," he agreed as another knock sounded from the entryway. "Have each of your instructors give you some feedback and send it through to me."

"Oh!" Imogen exclaimed, bouncing excitedly in the frame. "Are you going to give her a dollar for every positive comment like when I get my report card?"

"No," Brandon chuckled. "But she'll definitely be subjected to the same kind of consequences if she has negative comments," he added ambiguously, and before I had a chance to question him, or worry over the way Imogen seemed to visibly sober, he was waving goodbye and the screen went blank, ending the call.

I sat there for a moment longer, wondering what he could possibly do to me from across the ocean if my 'report card' showed terrible results, but was jolted from my thoughts when a new, different noise from the entryway reached my ears. It sounded like the security chain rattling against the wood of the door. Was someone trying to breaking in?

As quietly as I could, I tiptoed into kitchen to the bear-shaped cookie jar where I stashed my gun when I was at home during the day and pulled it out, switching the safety off as I refocused on the doorway to the kitchen. Footsteps in the entryway confirmed that my locks did absolutely nothing to keep people out, and I was lifting the gun, prepared to shoot the intruder when a voice called out.

"Steph?"

A string of curse words cascaded from my lips as I lowered the gun to my side, as Bobby came into view. "Jesus Christ, Bobby," I cried, switching the safety back on and carefully setting the gun down on the table as I passed it, making a beeline for him. "I thought you were an intruder! I could have shot you!" I wrapped my arms around his torso in a brief, relieved hug as I reassured myself that he was still in one piece after whatever had gone down at Rangeman last night and not sporting an extra hole from my gun.

"Sorry," he said, as I stepped back, though the look in his eye showed a glimmer of pride, probably at the evidence that I was willing to defend myself against anyone who would break in for more nefarious purposes. "I thought I heard you talking, but when you didn't answer the door I figured I was hearing things, so I thought I'd come in and see if you were awake." He held up the bakery bag and cup tray he had in his hands, like they gave substance to his story.

"What if I wasn't?" I asked, eyeing the offerings with interest.

He shrugged. "I'd have left most of the donuts behind, but the coffee would have come with me when I left." He eyed me closely as he moved past me into the kitchen. "I wasn't expecting you to be up yet after last night's adventure."

"Had a video call with Brandon and Imogen," I explained, following him to the table and quickly snatching up the bag once he set it down, digging out a Boston Crème and taking a huge bite. I let out a moan as I sank into the nearest chair, closing my eyes as the scrumptious pastry filled my mouth. "Thank you so much," I added. "This is just what I needed."

A smile played at the corners of his mouth as he slid the coffee that was clearly mine across the table to me. "I thought you might feel that way," he said, selecting a donut of his own, but not sitting down to join me.

He appeared to be freshly showered and dressed in casual clothes, so I knew he didn't need to get to work, but it didn't explain the fact that he was still standing in my kitchen. If he was planning on sticking around he would have normally settled in by now. "Do you have somewhere else to be?" I asked uncertainly.

"It's still technically still my Work-Free Weekend," he shrugged leaning the side of his leg against the table a little. "Today is mine to do whatever I want."

It didn't really answer my question, but I also realised that I hadn't exactly asked the question I wanted him to answer either. I took a sip of my coffee, just to take a moment and centre myself as I considered the way forward. After my realisations last night I wanted to open up a dialogue with Bobby about my feelings, but being that I wasn't very practiced in that area, I didn't have a clue where to start. Usually, when feelings are brought up, I wasn't the one to do so, so figuring out what to say to start the conversation was proving difficult. Eventually, after a full minute of silence had passed between us, I settled on, "What is it you want to do with your day off?"

The smile that had been playing peekaboo with me since he arrived broke forth into a small, but mischievous grin. "I was hoping you'd let me laze about here with you," he explained. "I'm beat and could really use some time away from the Rangeman building."

That still didn't explain why he was still standing, but my heart was singing too loudly for me to be able to question it further. If he wanted to spend the day with me who the hell was I to tell him he had to be sitting down to do it. Hell, I'd let him hang from the ceiling if it meant he'd stick around. Returning his grin, but discarding the mischief he'd put into it, I suggested, "Why don't you go find something to watch on TV? I'll be with you in a minute."

So close! And yet, so far...