A/N: I own my OCs and the plot. It's pretty common knowledge that the rest is that Janet's.
I jerked awake at 4 am to shrieking. Ranger cursed softly behind me and started to get up.
"What's going on?" I mumbled, half-coherent as I crawled out of bed too.
"I told Tank and a couple of the guys to come over this morning. That was before Mia and Dawn came to stay."
"Shit," I opened the door and came face to face with a scene that would have been funny it if it wasn't for the guns. Let's not get deadly here.
"Mia! Holy cow, girl." I started to move into the middle of the gun hold up when Ranger grabbed me around the middle.
"Not a good idea." He murmured. "Guns down." He ordered the men and all but one gun went down. Mia raised her eyebrows and kept her gun steady on Tank.
"Mia, put it down." I demanded.
"You know these criminals?" I looked around the room when she asked.
"Actually, most of them were military."
"They broke into your apartment."
"They're associates of Ranger's." I explained, as if this was the most ordinary thing. Oh, yeah. See, I just don't get enough showdowns in the middle of the night. Mia snorted, but lowered her gun.
"You need to get a new crowd." She said pointedly and stomped into the kitchen. I nodded to Ranger behind me and pulled Dawn with me. She was trying to make friends with Lester. It was cute, but it probably wouldn't help Mia's pissy mood.
"What the hell, Steph?" Mia asked as I entered the room. I shook my head and moved to the coffee pot. I needed coffee. This was too much. "I don't like that those men come into your apartment at all hours! I mean, how can you trust them? Those are big guys and they look pretty…darn scary." She toned down her language for her daughter. I listened to this for a while, gritting my teeth a little. "For crying out loud, they were armed! They are probably all carrying concealed without a license. I could go out and arrest them all."
"Mia-"
"Steph, I can handle you being around Ranger. I may not like it one bit, but he seems to be fun for you. But those guys? Jeez, Steph, what if they hurt you-"
"Mia, shut up! Don't you get it?" I broke in before I could stop myself. "I trust Ranger. I love Ranger. He isn't my toy; he's my boyfriend, okay? And he is doing a pretty good job of keeping me alive." I stopped talking, trying to find some control before I ripped into her.
"But those men." Her voice was small.
"I trust those men, too. They have done nothing to me, but get hurt for me. They're good guys, no matter what you think about their appearance. Okay? There's stuff going on here that you don't understand." I turned on my heel and poured my coffee. We both stopped when we realized that the other room was silent. Mia's cheeks became bright pink. They had heard everything. Great, just great.
"I'm going to go get ready." She mumbled and left the room. I sat down at the counter with Dawn.
"Well, that was interesting." I sighed and she nodded.
"What happened to Joe?" Dawn asked me with a childlike innocence.
"He's being kind of stupid right now and your mom doesn't like it."
"When will he stop?"
"Wish I knew." I wanted Mia and Joe's happy ending, even if they both drove me crazy. I felt Ranger enter the room and I turned toward him and smiled at Tank. I pointed to the coffee and Tank moved to get some.
"She okay?" Lester asked from the doorway. Ranger moved behind me and I leaned against him. He grabbed my coffee and took a drink.
"She's just stressed up. She didn't mean anything by it."
Tank leaned his hip against the counter and poured a cup. Lester gave him a grin. "I'll take one, big guy."
"Get it yourself, pipsqueak." Tank grumbled.
"Oh, hey man, coffee." Some black guy that I didn't know moved in beside Lester.
"Get it yourself, Crash." Lester answered and Tank slides him a cup. "What? Oh, c'mon, Tank!" Crash took his coffee from the counter beside me. He looked down at Dawn and winked. She giggled and I took my cup back from Ranger and found it mostly empty.
"Can I have some, please?" I asked Tank in a sweet voice. He grinned and poured me some. Lester mumbled something, gave up and walked over to Tank. He pulled out a mug and held it out. Tank looked at him blankly.
"Please?" Lester tried reluctantly.
"That's all you needed to say." Tank poured the darn coffee.
"Crash didn't." Lester pouted in a manly way. I rolled my eyes. Whatever.
"He's Crash."
"Yeah, if Tank didn't give him his morning coffee, we might not make it to the bust." Bobby moved into the room.
"How did he get the nickname?" I asked and the guys all around me chuckled.
"He's worse with cars than are, beautiful." Lester grinned and Crash smacked him.
"I'm good with cars, but if you drive that much you're bound to have a few accidents." Crash explained to me, shrugging.
"A few?" Tank snorted.
"Try, what is it now? 23? 24?" Bobby ducked Crash's hand.
"More like 30." Lester threw in helpfully. Around the guys' laughter, I heard Mia moving around in my bedroom. I nodded to Dawn and she slid off her stool with a little help from Bobby. How did she do that? All these big, strong tough guys were putty in her hands.
"Got to go, guys. Get ready and all." I turned to Ranger and kissed him lightly, much the delight of the immature brats. They whistled at me as I left. I went through the living room, grabbing Mia's bag and walking down the hall. Mia looked up in despair as I walked in.
"I'm sorry, Steph. I'm a bitch." She hugged me and took the bag. She was currently wrapped in a towel. Guess that wouldn't go over well at the precinct. I didn't speak, just sitting down on my bed and waiting for her to talk. "They scared me, you know? I guess after the stuff Joe told me about Ranger, I just assumed." She started dressing. I guess that was all I was getting.
I shrugged. "Joe sees what he's supposed to see. It's a reputation, Mia, not who he is."
"No one is that good at acting." Mia gave me a look.
"Who says he's acting?"
"Oh, come on, Steph! If he acts like a thug, how can that not be whom he is but he's not acting? Give me something to work with here." She sat down on my bed next to me, clothes on and hair dripping.
"He just let's you believe what you want to."
"I don't want to believe that you are living with a criminal."
"Look, it's barely 5 in the morning. I can't do this this early."
Mia snorted. "Whose fault is that?"
"Ranger's guys have never woken me up." I pointed out as I walked out the door. She shook her head as I shut the door behind me. I smiled when I walked into the living room. Lester and Dawn were curled up on the couch watching Spongbob and Dawn was explaining it to him.
"That's Spongbob." She pointed to the yellow thing on the screen. "And that's Patrick, he's not to smart but he's Spongbob's best friend. And that's Squidward. He's not very nice, but he's Spongbob's neighbor." Lester nodded along with everything the girl said. He looked so serious that I was sure that he would be taking notes if he had any paper handy.
Ranger was standing in the doorway, fully dressed and ready to go. How did he do that? He was watching the pair and he shook his head. Tank was the only one left in the kitchen. I pushed Ranger slightly and we moved into the other room.
"Where is everyone?" I asked.
"Getting the cars ready. We were just waiting for you."
"For me?" I said, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. Ranger and his boys operated on a level above me. About ten levels above me. The man in front of me grinned.
"Don't worry, you're not involved. Lester is you're partner today. Use him. I'll be home as soon as I can, but this might run pretty late." He kissed me and when he walked past me, I grabbed his hand to stop him.
"Which one?" I asked.
"Anders." I kissed him hard.
"Be careful." I whispered.
"Always, babe." He walked out and I realized that he hadn't made any promises. Tank followed him out and I looked up at him.
"Don't let him get hurt." I commanded Tank. He nodded seriously.
"It's not going to happen, girl."
I sat on the bar stool when the door closed. Anders was bad news. He was a high profile skip with a rap sheet as long as his history and he had quite the history. The man was ex military, Special Forces. He had a lot of deaths under his belt. I didn't like that Ranger was on this one, but he was the best. Who else would take it on?
"Don't worry. He knows what he's doing." Lester said from the doorway.
"Who knows what their doing?" Mia asked, coming down the hall.
"Patrick. He wants to work at that restaurant thingy." Lester replied smoothly.
"Spongbob, huh?" Mia chuckled, grabbing coffee.
"Oh, yeah. Stephanie was just worried that he wouldn't make it out alive, since he never works, you know? But I know that Patrick has some serious skills and he always gets things done."
"He's a lazy starfish." Mia frowned.
"He has a lot of potential." Lester winked at me then moved back to the living room.