Challenge #64- New Beginning
Rating- PG13, language as usual
Spoiler- You would have had to have read my last fic, in the #62th challenge folder. I decided to bring back Steph, Ranger and the baby -
We woke up a mere four hours later, just as the Trenton sun was rising. Ranger was up and out of the room with the baby before my morning brain could register what had happened.
Ranger. Baby. Mother.
I slipped out from under the covers, scuffling into the living room following Ranger. He was making soft cooing noises at the baby, as the baby wiggled her bare butt.
Batman was Superdad.
He pulled the tabs on the diaper tight and pressed them firmly to it. He snapped the three snappies, and held the baby up, her toes skimming the couch on which she'd been changed on.
She made a cooing noise, mimicking Ranger's from a second ago. It had never dawned on me just how Dad Ranger was. He had a nine year old somewhere in Miami he'd done this with. He knew what he was doing.
Me, on the other hand, had tried my hardest to avoid babies. In my opinion, they were icky. They sat in their poop and they usually had canned carrots running down their chin. I was about as much mother material as Bob was human.
Ranger turned, balancing on the balls of his feet in a squatting position. He smiled at me, his latino eyes sparkling in the early morning sun.
I took a few easy steps and braced myself on the back of a chair. "Look's like she wanted an early start." Ranger said, his attention turning back to the baby.
It was nearly five thirty in the morning, an inhuman hour for someone to be up. Yet, I was awake.
"Yup." I said and slowly pushed myself off the chair back and into the kitchen for coffee.
Ranger slipped in behind me, my kitchen suddenly feeling cramped. He grabbed a glass from the counter above me and filled it with tap water. "Coffee?" I offered.
"A little." He said, throwing back the water glass and setting it empty on the counter.
This was quite a step for Ranger's usualy healthy way. Morning, noon and night, all he ate was fruit and salad. And maybe chicken. I had never once seen him eat something with grease on it.
The coffee was done and I poured two mugs, one less than the other. I brought them both out to the living room again, where the baby laid on her stomach in a little mountain of toys. With daddy watching from the couch.
"Babe." Ranger's voice pulled me back into the present.
"Hmmm?" I hummed over my coffee mug.
"We need to talk. Just for a minute or two."
"Good talk or bad talk?" I'd heard those words too many times.
"Probably a good talk. Depends on where you're comming at it from." Ranger explained, his lips twitching in a hint of a smile.
"Ok." I turned to face him on the couch, sitting cross-legged.
"I said that my life doesn't lend itself to relationships." I nodded in approval and he continued. "It still doesn't, but I wasn't expecting this. And I need to try. To be daddy and boyfriend and a normal guy."
"I realize my macho Army guy shit won't cut it anymore. I've screwed up so much, I'm beginning to forget who I am."
"Ranger..." I started. "You're Ricardo Carlos Manoso. Second generation Cuban-American who served in the National Special Services. You have a sucessful buisness and a scary platoon of friends. And I've always been able to count on you." My voice was steady, and his face was blank.
The baby cooed, and Ranger smiled showing a row of teeth.
"Babe, I was more than that. I was a good student until I dropped out. I had a wife and a daughter, which I lost due to my stupidity. I've killed more innocent people than nesessary and I've screwed up from there. It's the guy you never knew that I want to be again." I could hear a strain to his voice, a longing.
"Ranger, we've all had problems. Up until recently, I was a discount underwear buyer who had a sex-happy husband, now an ex. I get shot at for a living. I have two relationships with two completely different men, and I am so damned confused sometimes I can't see straight. But, I learn from my past and I refuse to dwell on it. I don't want to be who I was, that's impossible. Because, if I were, I would make the same mistakes all over again."
He stayed silent for a long time, his attention averted to the baby, who was wiggling helplessly and not going anywhere on the rug.
"I think...I think we should start over." He stated quietly.
"Like, from the beginning?"
He faced me, a slight grin spread across his face. "Yes. From the day we met. Forget the past, both of out mistakes. And start now." He paused and again glanced at the baby. "For her."
"For her." I whispered.
The room was quiet now with the exception of the Melanie's soft coos and gurgles. Up until the lock tumbled on my front door and a familiar shaggy figure bounded through it.
I sprung into action, grabbing the baby before Bob could. I cradled her against my shoulder, high away from Bob.
"Babe, I don't think he can hurt her." Ranger said and took the baby from me, holding her at chest level.
He was right. Bob could only hurt her if he fell asleep on her. The person who let Bob in took a step through the door. His brown hair fell into his eyes, his face was sporting a goatee that was about two days old. I smelled the cologne, and I knew who it was before he steeped through the door. And he brought doughnuts.
"Hey Cupcake," He said and smiled happily.
That's when he saw Ranger. Or, Ranger in an undershirt and boxers. Morelli's jaw line tightened and his eyes narrowed.
"Can I see you, outside, for am minute?" He asked me and sharply walked out the door, leaving it open for me.
I made a second of eye contact with Ranger, enough to say what I needed said. "I hadn't planned on him." Was silently exchanged.
"What's is with him?" Morelli asked sharply, his voice like the blade of a knife.
"He spent the night." I figured it was not a good time to lie.
"I can see that. After all those long battles we've had, you're the one to actually cheat on me." Morelli said, his voice calm but his face suggested otherwise.
"I didn't." I stammered.
"Like hell you didn't." Morelli turned and leaned his back against the wall with his arms folded across his chest. He closed his eyes and his head rolled back.
From inside, I could hear the baby cry. Morelli opened an eye. He was close enough to know just where the screams were comming from.
"Something you'd like to share, Cupcake." The way he said it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
"Someone left Melanie at the airport."
"And exactly why is she in your apartent?"
"Joe," I said in a pleading voice. "What would you do if you found a baby stranded at an airport?"
"I'd leave her for security!" Joe's voice boomed.
I resisted the urge to cry. I couldn't show him that he was getting to me. "Ranger's all she's got. He checked with CPA. No missing persons with Mel's description."
"Then why is she your problem. It's Ranger this, Ranger that. If he's all she has, why is he here?"
"Because he can't take care of a baby by himself. He can't be two places at once."
"And you can't lead two lives. I can't keep doing this. You're going to have to choose. Ranger or me. That's it cupcake. You can't have both."
"Why is he such a threat to you?" I whispered.
Joe pushed off the wall and walked by me, whispering in my ear. "Because he can do things for you I can't."
I watched his body walk down the corridor, and step into the elevator. The doors slid closed and he was gone.
Instinctivley, he known I'd chosen Ranger. And that was that. With a sniff, I turned back into my apartment.
(If your on disregard this message...) As I had mentioned on the boards, I was thinking, err, not thinking but suggesting that this story be kinda a group project. I'll be posting this on and I would continue to post anything written with these three in it. I know it sounds kinda tacky, but I figured I'd throw it out there.
