Recap: Ranger explains to Steph why he made sure she was on top their first couple days together, they get breakfast, Ranger says they are going to the Zoo.

Ranger's POV

I admit, I didn't spend much time looking at the animals at the zoo. Instead, I watched Stephanie. She has this way of looking at the world, I wouldn't exactly call it childlike. It's more like she sees the world without cynicism. She can stand in a crowd of people looking at giraffes, and just enjoy them for the magnificent creatures they are. I kept scanning the crowd, looking for threats. And watching her. I loved seeing her eyes light up whenever she saw a new animal.

When we reached the lions she was enraptured with them, watching them move with their feline grace. Her arm wrapped around my waist. "They look like you."

"You saying I need a haircut, Babe?"

She playfully jabbed me with her left shoulder, then winced at the sudden pain. As expected, it had turned a nasty shade of purple. I'd been careful to avoid touching it, only planting the gentlest of kisses on it. She hadn't let me coddle her though, which was both frustrating and arousing. I wanted to keep her safe, she wanted to fly. I wouldn't love her so much if she didn't.

"You know what I mean. You move the same. The quiet grace, the predator's gait. The air of being master of all that's around you."

"Babe." I said, as I kissed the top of her head. We moved on from the lions to the jaguars. They were behind a large plate of glass instead of a concrete chasm, so we were only a few inches away from the habitat. The cat leapt down from its perch and stalked towards us, its shoulder blades visibly rotating with every step. Babe leaned forward, whispering "Oh, it's beautiful."

She had no way of knowing that I had once come face to face with a jaguar while I was fighting rebels in Colombia. It was a couple of months after we had met, when I'd been attracted to her but not let her know that yet.

Santos and I had been alone in the jungle for two weeks, trying to rescue the kidnapped child of a judge in Bogota. Kidnapping is a cottage industry in some parts of South America, and this judge had spoken out against the FARC, the rebel group that had been fighting the Colombian government for decades. With the fate of her child in the balance, the judge had refused to hold session, risking a case that had taken years to build. So the government called me and Santos in to rescue the eight year old.

It had been the dead of night. We'de been unable to light a fire, that would have been the same as hanging a neon sign saying 'please ambush here'. So we took turns sleeping, or what passes for sleep when you are on a mission. An hour here and there of fitful unconsciousness. I'd been keeping watch while Santos slept, and pulled out a photo I'd quietly snapped of Stephanie one day while we were getting ready for a stakeout. Her head was turned to the side, checking something on her belt, but her smile was still lighting up the picture. I didn't know why I'd taken it at the time, or why I'd brought it with me. Carrying pictures into enemy territory was dangerous. If you were captured, they might be able to track the person down and threaten them. I'd cut away anything from the picture that might identify where it was taken, so nothing was visible behind her aside from a plain brick wall. No signs, no buildings that might identify the skyline. Just her in all her bounty hunter glory.

"Who's the chick" Santos said, startling me. Shit, how had I let him sneak up on me? Some lookout I was. If he had been FARC, we both would have been dead. I started to put the photo away, but Santos grabbed it, staring at it in the faint moonlight that managed to permeate the jungle canopy.

"Pretty. Friend of yours?"

"Give it back, Santos" I growled, not willing to let him pull me into an elementary school game of keepaway.

"I'll give it back if you tell me who she is."

That wasn't going to happen. Only thing more dangerous than having her picture was someone else knowing her name. Someone who might not be able to keep it quiet under the wrong circumstances. Circumstances like torture, which was always a possibility on jobs like this.

"I call her Babe, and that's all I'm telling you."

"Babe, huh? How's she in the sack?"

I growled again at the crudeness of his words, which was odd. We had partaken in hundreds of far dirtier conversations over the years. Santos and I had grown up together, and been like brothers for much of our childhood. We had stolen girly magazines and poured over them together, wondering what all that soft skin would feel like. Even after I had moved to Miami, we had stayed in touch. He had been the first person I'd told when I lost my virginity at 15 to a girl I was on the track team with. When we had been in special forces together, we had even shared women sometimes, taking turns with a prostitute or woman at a bar who wanted to have sex with the mysterious Americans. Watching each other's backs when we were vulnerable. The hookers didn't mind, they got paid twice as much for only a little more time, and there are always women willing to hook up with American soldiers at certains ports. Santos and I look enough alike that if one of us was a woman's type, we usually both were. This had led to a few nights I hope Steph never learned about, her Catholic upbringing might make it more than she wanted to know.

Before Santos and I could settle our differences, we heard a rustling in the underbrush. Something was out there, and we were making enough noise that we had attracted its attention. We both became silent, not even breathing. I quietly pulled my weapon from my side holster, aiming at the shaking leaves.

When the jaguar stepped out, I wasn't sure if I should feel relief or not. It wasn't the FARC, so there wasn't backup. Jaguars hunt alone, so it was unlikely there was another one sneaking up behind us. But my bullets were meant for humans, and I wasn't sure if they could kill a cat that massive before it at least got a good swipe at us. And out here, any deep cut would get infected and could kill just as effectively as the creature's teeth. Just far more slowly and painfully. We had a more powerful gun in our packs, but there was no way to get to it before the cat pounced. So we stared, me pointing a possibly useless gun at a jaguar nearly my size, made of pure, lean muscle and sharp fangs and claws. It staring at humans it didn't quite know what to make of.

A slight wind shifted and a moonbeam made it through the leaves far overhead, and the cat and I stared into each other's eyes. Crazy as it sounds, I feel like when our eyes met we came to an understanding. Neither of us knew who would win, but no one would walk away uninjured. It backed up into the undergrowth, and was gone.

"Ranger?" I heard Stephanie say.

"Yeah Babe?

"You've been staring at that leopard for over 5 minutes. What's going on in your head?"

"Just remembering something. And it's a jaguar, not a leopard."

"Whatever. You two were staring at each other for so long, it was like you were having a conversation."

"Just an understanding. One hunter to another. Let's move on, I hear the small mammal house had fat tailed gerbils, maybe one of Rex's cousins?"

"He's a hamster, not a gerbil."

I kissed her head and walked with her towards the small mammal house. But I looked over my shoulder as we left, not for the security sweeps I did by second nature, but to take one more glance of the sinewy grace of an animal whose relative could have ended me before I'd even let Stephanie know I was attracted to her. I gave it a nod as we walked away.