The Mourning After aka The Shower Sequence

ahem. The list of blamees is getting longer. Tracy for the original idea of gay flannel Stephanie, Suze for the Gay Lula, and now Rachel and Joanne for this bit.

No, I am not JE. I am a fan of hers, and am respectfully borrowing and mutilating her characters for the sheer twisted joy of it. Yes, this is insanely implausible. Think of it as a what-if, the what if being: What if Janet got juiced up, took some crack, added some LSD, a case of Red Bull, a shot of tequila, a tab of acid, some X, and maybe a little bit of Pot, and a jar of Kool-Aide, then played with some glitter pens and decided to write a Stephanie Plum story.

Furthermore, this ending may only make sense to fans of Dallas or those who were around on the PlumFanFiction boards on yahoo.

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Morelli was staring into the bottle of Jack Daniels black like it might yield up the meaning of life at any moment. Which, as anyone who has so consulted a bottle of Jack Daniels black knows, it eventually will. Oh, it might take a few added shots of tequila, and you probably won't remember it in the morning, but you will remember the feeling of exultation and the 'great idea' you have immediately afterward.

Generally the damage inflicted by the 'great idea' is directly proportional to the desperation of the drinker to escape their problems. This was Morelli's second bottle, and he was eyeing the Gray Goose next to it. He planned on escaping to Mars and therefore his great idea was very likely to be equivalent to the collision of two continents at the exact moment of the planetary alignment foretelling the outbreak of World War 3 as predicted by… some old crazy guy.

"She was only with me to cover up her ongoing affair with a large former hooker and then she dumped both of us for Cat Woman?" He gulped down the whiskey and grabbed the bottle of Gray Goose. God, as far as he was concerned, had obviously taken a holiday and was letting Jerry Springer write the plot. Or the All Powerful was experimenting with some of the mind-altering chemicals he had created. Which would, actually explain the origin of platypi, so maybe this wasn't the first time.

He was puzzling the events of the last week over in his head, comparing them to the origin of the platypus, and felt he was very close to discovering something, or at least developing some idea of what to do. His companions, men who he'd previously disdained as second-rate, as outlaws and thugs, sympathetically raised their glasses at his pronouncement. One of them had just had his hopes for a date with the aforementioned Cat Woman crushed, and the other was going through the equally nasty shock of realizing two flames had both gone gay. Together.

They were both on their second bottles of Captain Morgan, also renowned for his inspirational abilities, and both men were beginning to feel quite poetic about the universe in general. Considering their identities and professions, this was almost miraculous, although the Pope would probably have begged to differ. Probably the Pope and a good many cardinals would have used words more akin to 'diabolical.'

"Hey, man, look on the bright side," suggested Morelli's larger companion. The man was at least six foot five and built like the proverbial brick shithouse or more aptly, a tank. Hence, his street name and the only moniker known to Morelli and anyone else in Trenton with the possible exception of the third companion who happened to be Tank's boss and therefore had access to payroll information. Unless he was paid in cash. Always a possibility with people of his sort. "See, you ain't the only ones whose love life just got shot to shit." He laughed heartily at his own joke.

"Tank!" The second companion glared at his larger friend and employee.

"Aw, come on, Ric, everyone knows about the duck."

Morelli's ears perked up at the mention of ducks. Not willingly, of course, but he was a Burg boy, and gossip was his second nature. "Duck? What's Vinnie up to?"

Ranger sighed and looked again at Tank. He was Cuban-American, so his double dose of gossip genes had cancelled one another out. Or rather, he felt gossiping should be done in Spanish. Joe's eyes narrowed.

"You owe me, Manoso. You set me up today, sending me into that madhouse. I barely made it out alive."

"I thought she was too hung over to do that much damage." Ranger had the grace to at least sound a little apologetic. Morelli snorted.

"A good thing a couple of the other bounty hunters showed up and got her off me. I don't think my ribs were gonna last much longer." He rubbed his still-bruised chest. "The Patriots ought to hire her as a line backer."

"Vinnie was really, um, upset today," Tank said, grinning widely. Morelli blinked and tried to focus, because in the shadowy depths of Shorty's bar, Tank's midnight dark skin blended in, leaving Joe with the impression he was speaking to a Cheshire cat with a Marlboro habbit.

"He gets upset?" Morelli wondered aloud. "I wasn't aware Vinnie had feelings…"

"Oh yeah. Ranger said he was crying even!"

"Someone killed Joyce Bernhardt?" Joe asked, confused. "I think I would have heard about that one. Half the girls in the Burg would be dancing in the streets."

"No, not Joyce. Vinnie got a real distressing photo from his father in law…" Tank chortled and was now laughing too hard to continue.

"Apparently Harry went duck hunting," Ranger supplied.

Joe had just taken a sip of the Gray Goose and nearly choked himself on it. Tank clapped him on the back until his brain rattled, but the coughing stopped.

"A weasel may love a duck…" Joe said thoughtfully when he was able to speak again. Somehow the news improved his mood, as long as he didn't think too much about being in love with a duck. Then again, being in love with human females wasn't paying off too well either.

"To duck hunters everywhere," Ranger said, raising his glass in a salute.

They all touched glasses and finished their drinks. There was a quiet time as they all pondered the tragedy of the duck, the larger tragedy of human sexuality, and more importantly the tragedy of the football game they were watching. Jaguars v. Ravens. A few more drinks and it was going to be downright hilarious.

As fate would have it, a few more drinks was just what was needed for many things to go out of focus as well, and a few more things to come blearily swimming into focus.

"Fuck relationships," Joe announced to the room at large. "I'm through. You find the one girl you could spend time with, the one girl who makes you think about settling down with and having kids with and all she does is get fuckin' wilder. Until you look like some damned conservative compared to her, and she thinks you're boring! I'm not boring, damn it. I was just tired of all the runaround. Now all she wants to do is party. She used to put her cookie jar in the kitchen and talk about curtains. Fuck.

"Now it's all about fuckin' bounties and cars and… Jeanne Ellen. I knew there was a reason she was all into flannel and heavy metal. I knew it! I just didn't look for the signs. I should have been... what's that you always told her, Ranger?"

"More aware of your surroundings?" Ranger's lips quirked in his equivalent of a grin.

"Nah, she took you both. She took everybody, man," Tank said amiably. "She had the world fooled. I bet she even had herself fooled."

"Not Lula though," Morelli shuddered. "I am so glad no one got that on tape."

"I dunno," Tank looked thoughtful. "It might have been worth a lot if you got it on the internet…" Ranger looked ill.

"You know what," Joe stood up, taking his bottle of vodka firmly in hand and swaying only a little. "I have a great idea!"

The other two raised their eyebrows and awaited the announcement.

"God, I will never drink again," Joe moaned and rolled over. He was in a bed. A very soft, very large, very not-his bed. He cringed inwardly, knowing better than to attempt the outward version of that motion in this condition. He lay there for a time, letting his mind filter into alertness, learning to work around the throbbing pain in his head. It didn't really work, but it at least got him up to a fraction of his normal functions. For instance he learned that aside from the agony in his head, his body was in contact with something besides bedding, and he needed to pee.

It was the something that was not bedding which had him worried. Joe moaned inwardly, the outward moan earlier having set off the pounding of his brain into mush. He wasn't one to take chances this early in the day. Unfortunately it might not be that early in the day, and he needed to know where he was and who the something beside him might be.

He was hoping he'd run into Terri Gillman sometime last night, but he had a niggling suspicion that he hadn't. The only bad thing about this was it led to the realization that, from the time shortly after he announced his 'great idea' until waking up in this bed, he had not a god damned single solitary idea of where he had been or who he had met. It had been a very, very long time since he had had this particular problem. He tried to remember how he used to cope with it.

Something was making a loud and hideous racket. It sounded like a cell phone. His cell phone. Fuck. He opened his eyes and sat up. The world spun, tilted, righted itself long enough to lull him into a sense of safety and an attempt to stand. The world gleefully spun itself around again and Joe ended up on the floor, bruising his knee in the process.

"I'm still drunk. Wonderful," he muttered as he pawed through a lump of muddy material that might have been his pants in a former life. The cell phone was stuffed into a pocket, ringing its silicone heart out. "What?" he growled into it after flipping it open.

"Joe? Is that you?" Carl's voice sounded relieved.

"Yeah. I think so. I might need some coffee before I say for certain."

"Look, um, Joe, we need you to call Vinnie…. " there was a conversation in the background . "And could you call Eddie's old lady and tell her he's undercover or something?"

Joe held his head in his hand and tried to force his aching brain to follow the conversation. "Vinnie?"

"Yeah. We need bonded out. Me and Big Dog, and Eddie, and Ranger's guys… what's your names?… Cal and Junior."

"Okay. Bonded out of where? Who the fuck arrests cops?"

"Umm.. well, see, we ain't exactly in the states…" Joe switched the phone to his other ear.

"You aren't in the state? Ok, which state?"

"Ahem… no, I mean the US. We ain't in the US."

"Where the fuck are you? How'd you get out of the US?"

"We're in Mexicali. Apparently they think we burned down a whorehouse last night and.."

"No. Stop. I don't want to know how you got there or why you went to a Mexicali whorehouse. I'll call Vinnie."

Joe disconnected and sat staring at the phone. No way was he calling Shirley. Not even for Gazarra's soul.

"Joseph?" a woman's voice asked softly. "What's happening?" Oh god, he knew that voice. Joe stared at the doorway, with the emergency procedures posted on it. A hotel with her… he was naked. Oh fuck. Oh God. Oh hell. This was hell.

He didn't want to turn around. He wanted to take his former pants, his phone and just bolt out that door. The door to salvation. What had they done last night?

Against his better judgement and every instinct of self-preservation, he turned his head to know if he was right. He was praying he had just hallucinated the sound and tone of the voice.

Maybe he should have gone to church more often…

"Mrs. Plum…?" he squeaked like a twelve-year-old boy caught with his dad's Penthouse.

"Oh, please. After last night, it's just Ellen. But not in front of Frank. I don't want him knowing anything about this…"

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Tank woke up to the headache from hell and the unique sore muscles acquired through sleeping in a very unnatural position on a hard surface. He rubbed his eyes until they cooperated and opened, then began rubbing his neck so that it would cooperate and move.

He froze when he realized what his eyes had opened to. He rubbed them again, and tried it a second time.

Same result.

He was staring at branches. And leaves. And blue sky. He looked down, onto a patch of mowed grass. He looked around again. He was in a tree, in the middle of a pasture. A black Porsche was parked a little ways off.

Tank's eyes closed again. He didn't want to know, he really didn't. He had almost convinced his body to pass out again when the door of the Porsche opened and a figure emerged. A small figure dressed in purple.

"Hey hotstuff!" she yelled. "How'd you get all the way up there?" She was walking closer, the sunlight shining on her purple-tinted hair. Tank sat back in shock, forgetting his precarious position, and found himself falling.

He landed on his back, the air rushing out of his lungs in a loud "oooof."

"Well, damn, if you studs don't know how to show a girl a good time," she cackled. "I ain't had no one fall out of a tree for me before…"

Tank coughed and wheezed at her in response. When air finally began to refill his large lungs, he pushed away the sudden urge to scream and instead settled for asking a relatively simple question. "Ah… Mrs. Mazur… Where are we?"

The old lady frowned at him, and looked at their surroundings before looking back at him sternly. "You know, you oughtn't drink if you can't hold you liquor," she scolded.

"Sorry ma'am," he replied, sitting up carefully.

"Well now you know. And for your information, we're in Pennsylvania, near as I can tell."

"You don't know?"

"You weren't the only one drinking like a fish last night, sonny. But I'm old, so it's allowed. I got all kinds of stuff to forget."

He had to smile at that, then realized just who he was with. Thank god they hadn't woken up in bed or naked. He shuddered violently.

"Any idea why you went tree climbing last night, Tank?" She asked, helping him to his feet. Well, it was more she held his arm while he hoisted himself u and tried not to notice her feeling him up on the way.

"Not a clue. My head feels like it's getting pounded to hell."

"We need to get you some McDonald's. Whose car we in?"

"I have an idea," Tank said as they approached the black Porsche. "I'm not too sure he's gonna be real thrilled with us having it though…" he was contemplating just how badly his boss was going to take the news when his pocket began to vibrate. He glanced at the display and frowned at the unfamiliar number. "Yo."

"Tank? Where the hell you at? We can't find Ranger, Cal, Junior, or half the other guys. And most of the Trenton PD is missint too. Eddie Gazarra's wife is storming Governor Juniak's office… and Stephanie Plum's grandma is missing too."

"Slow down Santos. I don't know where Ranger or the rest of them are, but I think I'm somewhere in Pennsylvania. And I've got his Porsche."

"What the fuck did you do last night?" awe was creeping into Lester's voice.

"I don't have a god damned clue. But I woke up in a field, in a tree, with a Porsche… and Stephanie's grandma." There was a howl of laughter from the other end of the phone.

"I'd have slept in the tree too, man."

"Shut up."

"Now that is a whole new kind of drunk, Tank my man. What you did is cross country, tree-climbing, granny-escaping drunk!"

Tank made an angry noise and disconnected. Mrs. Mazur looked at him expectantly. "What about McDonald's?" he asked.

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"I'm never drinking again," Ranger swore, keeping his head firmly buried in the pillow. He hadn't been this hung-over in a decade. What the hell had they done last night? He remembered being at Shorty's, and Morelli had had a 'great idea'… that somehow ended up with half the police department being invited, and almost all his RangeMan crew…and then everything got a little hazy. At least he was in his own apartment, in his own bed. Naked…

After a suitable amount of time had passed to get used to the intense agony of a second-day hangover, he opened his eyes and attempted to move. It worked, and he leaned up to look at the clock. He had immediate cause to regret his actions, and fervently wished he'd remained stationary.

The clock, in hideous, annoying, painfully bright numbers, declared it to be noon. Ranger leveled a glare on it that would have sent any sane inanimate object screaming for the hills. At the clock's impertinent lack of action, Ranger's arm sent it sailing off the nightstand. Its final revenge was the loud crack it made as it hit the floor, a sound that reverberated through his skull and drove him back down into the pillow. But not before he noticed a few things out of place: a pile of clothing on the floor, a spike heel lay abandoned by the door… and the distant sound of the shower running.

Ranger closed his eyes and began to pray. He knew the stories about nights like this. Usually they ended with the phrase "coyote ugly" coming into play. He remained in that position, face down in the pillow, still as death-warmed-over, and waited until the shower was shut off. He was debating grabbing some clothes and making a run for it, but was afraid too much movement was going to send his stomach into revolt. He was screwed.

The door to the bathroom opened and someone padded out. A light step, so it couldn't have been Lula. And it wasn't a man. Ranger shuddered, where the hell had that thought come from??

As the person moved around the room, curiosity finally got the better of him and he slowly sat up to see who was the mystery guest was. A shapely figure, wrapped in a towel was sorting through the pile of clothes on the floor. Hm, definitely not bad from this angle…

She pulled off the towel that was turbaned around he head, allowing a long tangled mess of damp brown curls to fall across her back. Ranger sighed, well that explained that. Same hair, same figure. He hoped he hadn't done anything too embarrassing, like using the wrong name… As if sensing she was being watched, the woman turned around to face him.

His heart skipped a beat, or at least it felt like it did. He blinked, and wondered if he was still drunk. His guest frowned and glared at him.

"It can't be that scary can it?" she demanded, reaching up to touch her hair self-consciously. He shook his head, not trusting himself to speak. "What's wrong then? You…" she stopped and he saw the fear flash through her eyes. "You regret last night, don't you?"

Regret last… oh, fuck. He really wished he remembered last night…

"No, no that's not it. I'm just… surprised you're here.. I thought you were… What happened to Jeanne Ellen?"

Stephanie's eyes went from worried to stunned. She quickly walked to the bed and took his wrist, apparently checking his pulse. "Ranger? Are you feeling okay?"

"You moved in with Jeanne Ellen?"

Stephanie laughed, then collapsed on the bed in a fit of giggles.

Ranger shook his head, trying to think straight. "That's why we've all spent the last two days drunk. You told me, at Shorty's, you loved Jeanne Ellen. You were moving in with her. You love each other."

"Of course I love Jeanne Ellen! She's my sister."

He stared at her again, and tried to process the information. The part of his brain devoted to that, however, simply seemed to give up, and he got the impression it had decided to take a sabbatical to Katmandu and would call when it felt damned good and ready. He thought maybe it had had the best idea so far, and considered joining it.

Then Stephanie leaned in and kissed him. Katmandu could wait a few more hours…

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Yes, exactly right- this doesn't actually make sense. But if the highly paid writers of Dallas could do it, so can I. And I did it for free. Aren't you happy?