Chapter 8

Three SUVs pulled up to the curb outside the home Frank Plum had lived in with his wife for forty years and he let a smile grace his lips as he stepped out onto the porch. It hadn't even been a full day since he came home from the hospital. And while he was glad to be out of that sterile environment with it's constant barrage of noises and smells that he'd endured for weeks following the coma, there had been very little to be happy about in the last twelve hours.

As was her custom, Helen had put on a delicious welcome home meal, filled with all his favourites despite how time consuming the effort was. Food was love in her world, after all, and she was so very glad that Frank had made it thought to the other side of this ordeal. He'd learned from the doctors upon waking up that his condition had been very touch and go for a while there. He'd died twice on the operating table while they were retrieving the bullet from his chest and repairing the damage. He could only imagine the kind of chaos and trauma that news had imposed on his wife who tended to lose her cool at even the smallest of inconveniences.

But as they sat down to eat that first night home, the table laden with more food than was reasonable for one family to consume in one sitting, and the room filled with the relieved smiles of his wife, mother-in-law, eldest daughter and her family, he couldn't help by notice something missing.

"Aren't we going to wait for Stephanie?" Frank enquired from his position at the head of the table as the dishes automatically started circulating.

He'd never heard the dining room so quiet in all his years. The clattering of dishes stopped abruptly. Valerie sent her mother a wide-eyed look while Albert stared in open-mouthed horror at the bowl of peas he held. Edna's dentures were clicking around behind her pursed lips as she glared at her daughter. Even the children had stopped their bickering and were looking between the adults worriedly. The tension in the room could be cut with a butter knife when Franks gaze fell on his wife at the far end of the table and noted her clenched jaw and barely contained anger.

"Stephanie won't be joining us tonight," she gritted out, avoiding eye contact with everyone else at the table as she continued passing the rolls off to Angie.

"Or ever," Mary Alice added helpfully, handing her Grandfather a bowl of carrots. "Aunt Steph and Grandma had a fight and Aunt Steph said that she wanted nothing to do with Grandma anymore, so she doesn't come to dinner or anything like that. I miss her. I think dinner is more fun when Aunt Steph is here, but Mom said we can still see her so long as Grandma isn't around. We're going to the movies with Aunt Steph and Mr. Ranger on the weekend."

Frank wanted to say he was surprised by this news, but if he was being honest with himself – which he hadn't always been in the habit of, but was learning more and more how important it was – the feud between his wife and youngest daughter had been building to a breaking point like this for years (if not Stephanie's entire life). They had never really seen eye to eye, arguing over the most insignificant details, and it had only gotten worse after her divorce from the Dick, and again when she lost her job at E.E. Martin and took up bounty hunting for her cousin Vinnie. They'd made valiant efforts to get along, but like salt in boiling water, it always dissolved.

Now that he had a moment to think about it, he'd sensed something a little more off than usual during their respective visits at the hospital.

Stephanie had always come in on her own. Never once had her visits overlapped with any other visitor. And she'd always had at least two of her Rangeman friends stationed at the door. He'd assumed at the time that they were merely watching her back because of some threat she'd managed to attract. When he'd tried to ask her about it, she'd changed the topic to avoid answering, and his drug addled brain had been easily distracted by the tales of her latest adventures she jumped into telling. Later, when he recalled the question she'd brushed off, he'd assumed she was just trying to save him from the stress and worry of knowing she was in danger.

Now, though, he knew that it was worse than he could have imagined. He'd been weened off most of the painkillers by the time he'd been released from the hospital that morning, so his mind was clearer than it had been since before he'd been shot, even if the ache in his chest was a little worse for it. Something extremely heinous had gone down while he'd been unconscious, something neither party had wanted to confess to him while he was lying in that hospital bed. And as much as he hated to admit it, he was fairly certain he could guess who was at fault.

"What did you do, Helen?" Frank asked, steel in his voice as he set down the carrots in his hands. This wasn't the first time he'd had to confront his wife in such a way that his words conveyed the assumption that she'd done something wrong without knowing even a snippet of what had transpired. Reviewing his visits with Stephanie and the interactions he'd witnessed between her men he now understood that they'd been stationed at the door to intervene if Helen had turned up, and the knowledge sadden him. He hated that his daughter felt the need to put a layer of muscled protection between her and her mother, but if fight was as bad as Mary Alice made it sound, he was proud of his Pumpkin for finally taking a stand.

"What did I do?!" Helen shrieked, choking her napkin in a death grip as she slammed her fists on the table. "Don't you mean what did you daughter do? Stephanie is the reason you were shot, Frank! She runs around town playing cops and robbers like a child and never once thinking of the consequences! If it wasn't for Stephanie those boys never would have-"

"If it wasn't for Stephanie there would be a lot more assholes roaming the streets than there are," Frank growled, cutting off his wife in a rare show of disagreement. He'd made a point over the years of blindly accepting, or holding his tongue on some of her more outrageous opinions in the name of keeping the peace, but it was clear that that had been a mistake. He should have spoken up sooner. As much as he'd always tried to be supportive for all of the women in his life, he could see now how he'd failed every single one of them with his silence. Well, no more. "Stephanie has had more courage and determination in pursuing this career move than you have ever had, Helen. And she's damn good at it. Why can't you accept that she's never going to fall into the perfect little carbon copy of you? She's better, Helen. This job suits her."

"Frank, she's had more stalkers and –"

"The job isn't without it's hazards," he agreed, with a shake of his head. "But she's smart. She takes care of herself, and when things get bad, she has a decent support network to back her up. I'm ashamed to say that you're not part of it, and I don't think I have been either." He let that sit in the air between them for several moments, holding his wife's gaze so firmly she began to fidget under the intensity of it. When he was certain his words had penetrated the little bubble she lived in, he set his jaw and repeated his question, determined to get to the bottom of this situation, dinner be damned. "Now tell me what you did, Helen."

"I don't understand why everyone always thinks these things are my fault!" Helen pronounced petulantly, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back in her chair. Clearly, getting the answers he needed out of the woman was going to be more difficult than he'd thought.

"When Grandma-" Mary Alice tried to start explaining, but cut herself off when her older sister nudged her in the side with an elbow and shoved a roll in her open mouth, essentially gagging her.

"Girls, why don't you take your brother into the living room and –"

Frank shook his head, laying a hand on Valerie's arm as he hauled himself to his feet. "No," he said adamantly. "Girls, stay and eat." He turned to leave the room, pausing only to assure his daughter and grandchildren that he was all right when they called after him. Quietly fuming, and filled for concern for his youngest daughter, he walked straight out the back door and into the yard, dialling on his cell phone as he made his way to his shed in the back corner.

"Daddy?" she answered on the fourth ring. "Is everything all right?"

A rush of pain entirely unrelated to his injury filled his chest at the worry in her tone as he realised how out of the ordinary it was for him to call her. "Everything's fine, Pumpkin," he assured her, settling onto the stool at his work bench and lowering his head into his hands. "I just wanted to check in on you."

Her tone was tinged with confusion as she informed him that she, too, was okay.

An awkward silence followed, Stephanie unsure of what the phone call was about, and Frank struggling to come up with the words he knew he needed to say. He'd never been verbose by any means, preferring to sow his love through small gestures of approval, or acts of service, but he knew that he needed to break his silence. He couldn't allow his wife's reign of terror to continue any more than it already had. If he'd been a decent father and husband, he would have put a stop to it years ago, but he wasn't. He was a sorry excuse of a man.

"I missed you at dinner tonight," he said quietly. It was a start, way into the conversation he needed to have.

"Sorry, I couldn't make it," Stephanie replied, and it was only the years of quiet observation that alerted him to the tension suddenly lacing her tone. "I wanted to, but I'd already promised to help Ranger with a job."

"Pumpkin," he sighed, lifting his head to stare at the photo of the two of them he kept above his work area. It was from a fishing trip he'd taken her on with some of his friends from the club when Helen had been laser focused on preparing Valerie for the perfect prom night and had professed her frustration with having Stephanie 'constantly in the way'. Frank knew Helen wouldn't have approved of the trip, proper young ladies didn't go fishing, which is why they never told her about it. All she knew was that Frank had taken Stephanie out for the day so that Helen and Valerie could do their primping and preening in peace, and that's all she ever needed to know.

The photo was his favourite, because it reminded him of just how free his daughter had been that day. She'd laughed and joked with the guys in a manner that her mother never would have approved of, but that brought a smile to every single one of the faces on that boat, including his own.

"You don't need to protect me from the truth," he told her. "I know something happened between you and your mother while I was in the hospital and that's why you weren't here tonight."

"Daddy-" she tried to protest, but he wasn't having it.

"What did she do, Stephanie?" he asked.

It took her a moment to launch into a recount of the events that had transpired the day he was shot, but as soon as she revealed just a couple of details he was back on his feet, pacing to relieve the anger and frustration coursing through his body once more. Helen had truly take a flying leap off a cliff and into the swirling deep of insanity this time. What kind of a mother not only forbid her own daughter from visiting her critically injured father in the hospital, but then goes on to lie to her about her father's death?!

On top of that, the pain and misery in Stephanie's voice told him that despite the stand that she'd taken against her mother, she still blamed herself for what had happened to him.

"I'm okay," he assured her, as she dissolved into tears on the other end of the line. "Pumpkin, I'm okay. I'm still alive, you didn't lose me. I'm still here. And none of this has been your fault. You know that. No one blames you." She muttered out something about her mother between sobs, but he cut her off. "Don't listen to what Helen says," he instructed. His blood was boiling. "What do I always say? Her opinion doesn't matter, so what do we do with it?"

She sniffed wetly, but her words brought a slight smile to his lips, soothing some of the worry that had seized his heart. "Last time someone reminded me of your 'spit in the wind' advice they ended up hocking a loogie in their own eye, so forgive me if I'm not quick to follow that action."

"Please tell me it was your Ranger," Frank chuckled, picturing the stoic man with his own spit splattered on his face.

"It was Lester," she corrected sounding more like herself.

"Speaking of Ranger," Frank said, pausing his pacing by the work bench and drinking in that photo once more. "Is he there with you?" When she murmured a confirmation, he requested, "Can I speak to him?"

Five men in black slid out of the SUVs as Frank made his way down the front steps to meet them. He met each of their gazes individually, giving a slight nod of thanks for everything they'd done for his Pumpkin not just throughout this most recent ordeal, but since the moment they'd met her. As he neared the middle SUV, the passenger door opened, revealing his daughter, dressed identically to the men that had escorted her, making him wonder if she truly had been working a job with them when he'd called, or if this was just the statement she'd decided to make to her mother and all of the Burg. She was done bowing her head in shame.

Frank held out his arms and Stephanie rushed to fill them, wrapping her arms around him carefully so as not to antagonise his persisting pain. "Proud of you, Pumpkin," he said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head as he squeezed her closer, injury be damned. "Thanks for coming," he added, lifting his gaze to the circle of men that had surrounded them and making eye contact with Ranger.

"Frank, what are you doing out there?!" Helen demanded from the porch. "Come back inside. You need to rest. And what will the neighbours thi-"

"Fuck the neighbours, Helen," Frank called back calmly over his shoulder, rubbing Stephanie's back when the sound of her mother's voice caused her to stiffen. "Let them think whatever they want. Actually, you know what?" he turned to face the house, Stephanie still held firmly to his side as the men parted their formation. "I'll tell them what exactly what to think of what I'm doing. I'm not going to stay under the same roof as a woman who would readily tear down her own child at every opportunity. But not only that, a woman who would deign to tell that same daughter that her father was dead when he was still alive. I'm leaving you, Helen. You can share all the deluded opinions you want with whoever you want, but know that I won't sit silently by a second longer."

"You-! I-! Frank!" Helen sputtered, her voice going from an outraged shout to furtive whisper in the space of three words as curtains up and down the street fluttered, letting them know that the Burg grapevine was already in motion. "Come back inside and let's talk about this!"

He shook his head, not bothering to lower his voice. "I think you've said quite enough, don't you?" he questioned.

"Where are you going to stay, Frank? You can't crash on a couch like you used to, you'll throw your back out. You need a proper bed! And what about your recovery? The doctor was very specific about your care!"

"Thanks for your concern, ma'am," one of the men – the medic, Frank was pretty sure from the next words out of his mouth. "But we have everything covered. I'll see to it that Mr. Plum has the best possible care to see him back to good health; both physically and mentally."

Frank nodded his approval of the statement. He'd only requested a place to stay for a while, but knew that with Ranger's need to ensure everyone's safety and security he would have made arrangements to monitor and assist with his recovery as well. And he knew that any attempts to protest would be met with not only Ranger's iron will, but that of Stephanie as well. There was no use in trying to stop the plans that were clearly already in motion.

"These men are going to help me pack a few things," Frank informed the woman who, for the time being, was still his wife. He started back up the path with his daughter still clutched to his side, clearly showing the world who's side of this family feud he was on. "I'll be staying in on of the apartments at Rangeman, so I won't need to take much with me. You won't be able to visit, but I actually prefer it that way. I'll call you in a couple of days once you've had time to think through your actions and we'll talk about what happens next."

Sputtering and blinking rapidly, it took very little effort for Frank to urge Helen to the side of the door so he and Stephanie could enter, the parade of Rangemen following in behind them. By the time they'd made it upstairs and Stephanie had directed one of the men to retrieve a couple of suitcases from the hall cupboard and place them on the bed in the master so that she and Frank could begin filling filling with clothes from the dresser and closet, Helen had recovered and was yelling at them as she stomped up the stairs.

"Sorry, ma'am," one of the men still in the hall said in a gruff voice that in no way conveyed even a single ounce of apology. "I can't allow you to go in there."

"It's my bedroom!" Helen screeched, the statement followed by the sound of a hand hitting solid flesh.

Frank was glad that Valerie and Albert had elected to take the children home as soon as they'd finished eating. There was no way he wanted them to witness this side of their grandmother. "If she hit's you again, feel free to use your stun gun on her," Frank called toward the door where two of the men were currently physically blocking the entrance. "Her cold heart can take it."

Stephanie's eyes widened at him, jaw dropping to the floor in sync with the stack of shirts she'd just pulled from the drawer. "Daddy!" she admonished, but he just shrugged, bending to pick up the pile of clothes with a light groan as the action pulled on his chest. The sound cut through his daughter's surprise, and she urged him back into an upright position as Ranger swooped in to take over the suitcase packing.

"Is there anything else you need or want to take with you, sir?" another man asked from the other side of the room where he was clearing out Frank's half of the hanging closet into another suitcase, essentially smoothing over the whole 'zap my wife' comment Frank had made.

Frank thought about it a moment, most of what he owned in the house he could live without, but there were a few items he couldn't bear to leave behind. "There's a shelf above the work bench in the shed," he replied. "Everything there needs to come with me. And there's a table and a novel on an end table beside my armchair in the living room."

The man nodded – Frank was fairly certain this was the one Stephanie had become good friends with over the years, Lester - and turned his head toward the hall. "You catch that Hector?" he called through the wall of muscle. "Shelf in the shed, end table beside the armchair in the living."

"Sí," came the short reply from beyond the room over Helen's continued protests.

With the men's military efficiency, it only took a few minutes to have all the important things packed up and loaded into the back of the SUV. Helen had filled the entire process with pleas and directives for him to stop and think about what he was doing, but she stayed out of the way as they emerged from the bedroom and Frank lead the parade back down the stairs and out of the house. Stephanie followed close behind, with Ranger all but glued to her, not giving Helen the opportunity to pull anything even if she'd had the courage to.

"Frank, please!" Helen cried, stumbling down the porch steps after them. "Think about what you're doing!"

He paused at the back of the of the middle SUV open, meeting Stephanie's shining eyes over the top of door he held open. "That's just the thing, Helen," he replied, his voice carrying easily in the quiet night air. The whole neighbourhood seemed to be holding it's breath, waiting to hear what he had to say. "I finally am thinking about what I'm doing. I should have done it a lot sooner, but you know what they say: Better late than never. I don't know what the future holds for us, but I'm done letting you drag this family through hell on a weekly basis. I've been waiting for you to realise the damage you're doing and make a change, but it's clear that it's not going to happen, and I'm not going to stand idly by any longer." He reached over the door and gripped Stephanie's hand, adding with a slight shrug. "That's all I know so far."

With that, father and daughter slid into the vehicle with twin sighs of relief. They took a moment to buckle themselves in, and for Steph to share a moment of strength sharing with Ranger before he started the engine and she glanced over the back of her seat.

"Ready?" she checked.

"Ready," Frank confirmed. And as the convoy of SUVs pulled away from the curb, the windows on the passenger side rolled down, four heads emerging back into the night air, tipped back and grinning as they each spat into the wind the gathering speed of the vehicles provided.

A/N: Thanks so much, everyone, for coming along on this journey and being so patient and supportive while my muse got distracted in the middle of it. This story is now complete.