Title: A stranger's opinion
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters on "Walker Texas Ranger".
Sydney and Gage were both lying awake in Sydney's bed, looking at the sealing just thinking about how lucky they both were to have found one another.
Sydney turned her head and looked him in the eyes. "I love you...a lot. I just want you to know that."
Gage rolled over towards her and kissed her on the cheek. "I know." He joked and received a pillow in his face for an answer. He grabbed his own pillow and threw it at her. The pillow fight lasted a few minutes until they were both too exhausted too continue.
They had both leaned back in bed again when they heard a little voice calling "mommy" from the living-room. Sydney got up and hurried to the door.
"Just run you coward!" Gage called to her as she exited the bedroom. In the door-way she spun around and gave him a warning glare.
"Mommy? What am I doing out here on the couch?" Becky asked and rubbed her eyes. She was sitting up on the couch with a warm blanket wrapped around her, looking very confused when Sydney entered.
"Good morning, honey. We moved you last night so that...so that Gage wouldn't have to sleep on the couch another night. We didn't think you'd mind since you were already asleep." She said. She felt a little bad about not telling her daughter the entire truth but she didn't think Becky was old enough to have the talk just yet. Not at eight years old.
"Oh, is his back hurting from sleeping here two nights in a row now?" Becky asked as she threw her blanket aside and got up.
"Well, no not yet. But it might have been if he had stayed here, so I'm sure he's very grateful to you for helping him out." Sydney assured her.
"You think?" Sydney nodded. "Good because I owe him big." The little girl said and ran into the kitchen with Sydney following right behind her. "I'm really hungry, can I have some breakfast?"
Sydney took out some bread and cheese and milk. "Sure, is this okay with you?"
"Yes it's fine, thank you. Is Gage having breakfast with us?"
"I'm right here. Syd, I'll have some bacon and eggs, please." Gage said and sat down at the table. Sydney placed her hands on her hips and towered over him.
"And where do you suppose I'd get them? Out of thin air?"
"You're a good cook; you can make some just like that." He snapped his fingers. When he saw the expression on her face that said she wasn't finding it amusing at all he immediately told her he wasn't serious. "I'm kidding Syd. You know what? You sit down here and I'll make breakfast, French toast."
Sydney raised her eyebrows but also smiled. "French toast for breakfast? Sure why not?" She sat down at the table and Gage moved over to the stove. She thought he looked kind of cute wearing that old dressing gown of hers and a pair of slippers. But then again she didn't exactly look her best at this time in the morning either.
"Becky, you're up early." Gage commented to the girl. "When I was your age my parents had big trouble getting me out of bed in the morning. I didn't really love going to school either but Julie, that's my sister by the way, she used to"...
"You have a sister?" Becky exclaimed with her mouth full of bread.
"Becky! Chew first, please." Sydney said and the girl blushed.
"Sorry mom. But if you have a sister then I sort of have another aunt."
Sydney and Gage exchanged glances. They understood what was going on here now. Becky wanted to look at Gage like a father in the future, not just like a friend.
"I mean that is if you two are together now. Are you?" she asked with big innocent eyes staring at the two people she loved the most now.
Sydney wasn't sure what to say. They were together in a way. They had spent the night together and they were living together for the moment but that was just temporarily. They had talked about moving in together with Becky some where else, a place that had room for the three of them.
Gage nodded at her. She thought that meant he wanted her to tell Becky they were together as a couple, at least that was what they had discussed and come up with last night.
"Yes, we are." She answered.
"Becky, if you want to think of my sister as your aunt and me as your...uhm"
"Father." Becky finished the sentence for him.
"Yes, as your father, thank you. Then that's totally fine with me." He watched her eyes start shining and a smile appear. He loved that smile of hers, just like her mother's actually. It felt so good to spend time like this, in the kitchen early in the morning. Like the family he had never had. Except when he was very little before his parents died of course, after that it had just been him and Julie in different foster homes with idiots, hurting them. For the first time ever, he felt at home.
"What are we doing today?" Becky asked.
"What do you want to do? You choose." Sydney said.
Becky thought it over a little while and then told them what she wanted. "I want to go to the Big Ranger House and see where you work."
"But honey you've already been there." Gage said. "Remember, when we left your house with you, we took you to Ranger Headquarters."
"Yes but all I got to do was sit at your desk and draw pictures, this time I want to see everything."
Two hours later, outside Sydney's apartment:
Gage, Sydney and Becky walked down the stairs in the building and out on the street to Gage's car. After finishing all the French Toast Gage had made and gotten dressed they were all ready to go to the office. Gage opened the door for Sydney and Becky who insisted on sitting in her mother's lap and then walked around the car and got inside himself.
"Syd, that lady who called yesterday bothers me. We still don't know what she wanted. I stayed outside Johnny's house and waited for her but she never showed."
"No, I know what she wanted. She called before we left for Sylvia's last night and I talked to her."
"Why didn't you tell me that? Who is she? I recognized her voice when I spoke to her."
"Sorry it slipped my mind. Her name is Edna Todd, you know the old lady who will be testifying about the abuse and drug smuggling. She wanted to know how Becky was doing with the changes and everything that's going on now. I said we'd meet some day for coffee."
"Okay, maybe I've met her some where before and that's why I recognized her voice." He started the car and drove off. Fifteen minutes later they pulled up in front of headquarters.
Sydney got out first and saw her. Edna Todd approaching them.
"Edna! What are you doing here?" she gave the old lady a hug and turned to Gage. "Gage, this is Edna."
The old lady nodded at Gage. She was wearing a long white skirt and had long grey hair and she walked with a cane.
"Good morning Ranger Cooke, Ranger Gage and Rebecca." She said politely. Gage stared at her and suddenly he knew who she was. He had heard her voice before and he had met her before. At the hospital after the helicopter ride home from Casa Diablo. The old lady in the waiting room, and the voice in the dark telling him Sydney needed help right before she was kidnapped. The voice he had been hearing lately belonged to her.
"Syd, this is the lady from the hospital; we both said hello to her there, why didn't you tell me you knew her. You didn't act like you did." He said and reached out his hand towards Edna as if he had to make sure she was real.
"Well, you didn't know anything about Becky then or much about my past so I had to act as if I didn't know who she was. Sorry I had totally forgotten about that, otherwise I would have told you."
Gage looked at the lady who had been standing there silent. He remembered how she had known his first name and acted so strange and how he never had a chance to find out how she knew so much about him. The entire situation was kind of spooky.
"Hello, young man. Very nice to see you again." She shook his hand and locked eyes with him. "I think we need to have a little conversation in private since I believe you have some questions you'd like to ask me."
Gage nodded. "Go on inside without me you two, I'll be right there." He said to a very surprised Sydney. What could they have to talk about after meeting once for a few minutes? She took her little girl's hand and turned to Edna before entering the building.
"Very nice to see you again, Edna. I'll talk to you soon."
"You too, dear. And you Rebecca." The old lady said and kissed the girl on top of her head.
Sydney and Becky left the two of them alone. Gage wasn't sure where to start, so much had happened and he needed answers.
"So your name is Edna, ma'am?" he said trying to start the conversation.
"Yes, Ranger Gage, it is. So how are things between you and little Sydney?"
"You should know, you were the one who told me to go ahead and tell her I loved her the second time we were in the hospital with her. You see, I just figured out you are the voice that's been talking to me. I don't know how you did it, and I'd like you to tell me."
She was quiet, just looking at him at first and he found it annoying. Then she spoke: "Yes, I guess you can say I have been speaking to you. My story is that I came to work in the Lawrence's house years ago and then I quit only to come back later and start working there again when Sydney contacted me. She knew I had worked there before and earned their trust, I was the perfect person to ask to go back there and spy on them and collect evidence about child abuse and drug smuggling. I did it and I have now turned it all over to the police and given my testimony."
Gage frowned. "That doesn't exactly explain how you have been talking to me and giving me advices about my relationship with Sydney and her kidnapping. I need more than you just told me." He shook his head at the little old lady in the long skirt in front of him. "Who are you?"
"I just told you, Ranger. Edna. And I just want to tell you that you and Sydney are going to be just fine. You are two terrific people who love each other and that little girl of hers. And that is all you need to know."
Gage heard footsteps behind him; he spun around and saw Sydney coming towards him. "Gage, are you coming? You've been out here for twenty minutes now."
Twenty minutes? That couldn't be right. She had only been gone like four minutes.ยด
"What are you talking about, Syd? You just entered Headquarters. I'm trying to talk to Edna..."
"Yeah, by the way where is she? And why are you standing here talking to yourself?"
Gage turned to the lady again but she was gone. She wasn't standing in front of him any more.
"Where did she go? Did you see her leave?" he asked confused and quickly opened the car door and looked inside for her. But she wasn't there either, she was no where in sight.
"This is impossible. I was just talking to her and now she's gone. She said she had given all the evidence to the police and that you and I were going to be okay and then you came out and when I turn around again she's gone." He explained but when he saw the amusement on her face he crossed his arms over his chest. "I was not talking to myself, Syd."
"No, of course not."
"I really wasn't. She was here just a minute ago. Where did she go?" he even took a look beneath the car just in case.
"Listen, honey. Edna has always been a bit strange and if she left like that...we'll probably never see her again. Take it from me." She reached up and put her arms around his neck and kissed him. "Now, let's go inside, I think you could use an extra cup of coffee this morning."
To be continued