Disclaimer: Janet Evanovich is one clever lady. Characters and everything you recognize are hers. I'm just playing.
Chapter 14"Hal. You go high and right, I'll go low and left. Let's go fast- no stopping, no pausing."
"You got it, Angel. On Three, Two, One…" Hal busted down the door and we rushed the room, weapons drawn. I took out the first threat crouched next to the couch barely a second later. After a brief pause to kick away his gun and make sure he was out, restraining him just in case, and moved along.
"Drop!" I shouted, satisfied as Hal hit the ground just before the second man took his shot. I took the second man as well, and followed the same procedure I had with the first while Hal stood on alert. We cleared the rest of the small house and the yard before walking back inside and holstering our weapons. As we stood there over the men, I was not at all surprised when the first man was the first to work his way out of the cuffs.
"Way to go, Babe! You too, Hal, though Steph definitely saved your ass."
While we'd been waiting for Ranger and I to get the all-clear on the hits over the last few weeks, Hal and I had been practicing daily in the laser tag course I'd begged Ranger to set up. I wanted to take advantage of our time out of the field to make sure that we were fully in sync as a team. Over the last couple of days, it had become clear that it was really paying off. We'd alternate giving commands and suggestions to each other, but recognized when urgency demanding an instant reaction like it had when I told Hal to drop before taking out Tank.
I gave Hal a fist bump that turned into our newly minted complicated handshake and smiled over at Ranger. When my stomach growled, everyone laughed and I just shrugged. Hal and I had decided to get an early start this morning because I was getting particularly antsy.
"Go get something to eat and get ready for today's briefing."
I stopped to give him a kiss before racing Hal upstairs, doing a little celebratory boogie when I beat him to the fifth floor. Ten minutes later, I was sitting next to Ranger in the conference room, watching as everyone settled in for the meeting.
"Okay, update on the Morelli situation?"
Hector whispered rapidly in Spanish to Lester for a couple of minutes, and his eyes widened as he listened. We all watched in silence waiting.
"Right. Well, there's no easy way to do this maybe I should talk to Steph outside first?"
"It's fine Les, everyone's going find out anyway. Just rip off the bandaid."
I reached over for Ranger's hand as Lester looked at me, then flicked his gaze over to Ranger before taking a deep breath and beginning.
"As you know, Steph, your mother has visited Joe in prison a number of times since his arrest. It turns out that all was a little more involved than we had thought. Terri Gilman is cooperating with prosecutors and it seems she was able to provide sufficient evidence that your mother was assisting Joe in his attempts to secure the hit against you. They ran a sting operation and were able to catch her red-handed confirming the hit order. She was arrested yesterday for conspiracy to commit murder; our understanding is that she's claiming she just wanted you kidnapped, but… it is unlikely that is going to hold up in court. I'm sorry Steph. For what it's worth, your father, Grandma Mazur, and Valerie are all refusing to post bail for her or hire a lawyer, so she'll be in jail until trial where she'll be defended by a public defender. She'll almost certainly be in jail for a very long time."
I folded into myself a little at hearing that. I knew that she wasn't on my side and didn't really seem to love me. Maybe she was even broken inside, but this was a lot more than I expected. I hadn't realized she'd actively hated me that much; she hated me, her daughter not just my job and my choice in men. When a couple tears dripped out and onto the table, Ranger pulled me over so my head was on his shoulder and pressed a kiss to the top of it. Everyone sat there for long enough for me to pull myself together and seemed grateful when I managed to avoid a complete breakdown.
Taking a deep breath, I asked, "is that all?"
"Word has gotten out about the arrest, and the hit has been called off. No one believes they'll get paid if they carry it out, or that there is enough left to protect them if they try. They're scared and unwilling to take the risk."
"So, we're back in the field?" I asked, directing my question primarily to Ranger.
"We'll each take an extra pair with us for the rest of the week just in case, but yes, we should be fine to be out in the field again."
"Yesssssss!"
Everyone chuckled a little at that, and the rest of the units started their regular reports while Tank passed out files. I flipped open the first file and smiled up as I showed it to Hal before turning back to Tank. He winked at me and said, "Lula says 'Welcome back, Skinny Ass White Girl. Thought you could use an easy one to get you going without getting shot at.' I figured she was right, so I thanked her on your behalf. Hope that's okay. Second file's a regular one though."
I looked over at Hal who was putting away his phone, "I Dream of Jeannie, marathon until 1400 hours. We should be able to do some research on our other file first, pick up some chicken, then take it over for a few episodes before we bring them in."
"Grilled chicken, right, Babe?"
I smiled and winked at Ranger, "I wouldn't dream of anything else," I said, making sure the sarcasm was clear in my voice. That way I wasn't lying.
By the end of the day, Hal and I had brought Mooner and Dougie in as well as our second file. Ranger called and asked if I'd be up for a distraction that night, and I agreed, flying on the high of a successful first day back in the field. Without much effort on my part besides squeezing myself into a dress Lula would have surely approved of, I made it a hat trick for the day.
Ranger and I did some truly inspired celebrating of a successful first day back that night, and the good mojo continued in the weeks to come. My newfound joy and confidence in my work, along with my continued private cooking lessons with Ranger, kept my mood up when it came time to testify about my final interactions with Morelli and my mother.
A few days after they'd both pled guilty- Morelli in exchange for being put in a prison he felt he was less likely to be stabbed in, and my mother to avoid the public trial as each court appearance of hers had been widely attended by and talked about in The Burg- Hal and I were pulling away from Tasty Pastry when I yelled at him to pull over then opened my door and vomited everywhere before throwing the doughnuts out the door to get the smell of them away from me.
Hal looked over at me in shock and said, "Jesus, Steph, what are you, preg…" his eyes widened, as I'm sure mine did as well. Mentally, I counted back the weeks and he must have seen something on my face because he started the car wordlessly and drove to the nearest non-Burg drugstore then told me to wait in the car. When he came back out, he handed me a brown paper bag then continued down the road to a gas station. He went inside, got the key for the bathroom, then did a security sweep before letting me go in and use it.
I couldn't wipe the smile off of my face when I came out, and Hal gave me a big hug and kissed me on the cheek. "Congrats, Steph. I'm so excited for you and the bossman. Now, let's go back to the office because I am not taking you out in the field in your condition, okay?"
"I'm with you on that, Buddy. But you have to keep this to yourself until I tell Ranger and we make an announcement to the rest of the guys, okay?"
"Sure thing, Angel."
"Rangeman rules say fathers get taken out of the field during pregnancy too, right?" when Hal nodded I asked, "you okay with being partnered with Tank for the duration."
"Of course. I can also stay in with you if you want though."
"I appreciate it, but there's no need for Rangeman to be down four in the field! Two will be bad enough."
"Nothing about this is bad, Steph."
I smiled to myself and asked Hal to stop by a bookstore on the way back. Fifteen minutes later, I was walking in to Ranger's office with a big smile on my face.
"What brings you here so early, Babe? Everything alright? Do you and Hal need backup?"
"I got you a present," I said.
I set the package on his desk, and laughed at his confused look when he opened it up and found the cookbook Baking with Julia inside.
"The lady at the bookstore thought this was one of the best baking books out there, and I figured, I'd take her word on it since I know nothing about baking."
"Babe?" Ranger stood up, a smile starting to break through on his mouth.
"Yeah, you know, I've been enjoying the cooking lessons, but I thought maybe it was time to switch over to baking. You know, since it appears I already have a bun in the oven…" I trailed off pulling the positive pregnancy test out of my back pocket and holding it out to Ranger.
He laughed and lifted me off my feet. It was a good thing I'd stopped and brushed my teeth first because Ranger was kissing my senseless in seconds. I wrapped my legs around his waist, joining in on his laughter when he walked to the door opened it and yelled out, "we're having a baby!" as we stepped onto the floor.
We were immediately rushed by our chosen family offering their congratulations and as I was passed around, exceedingly gently, all I could think to myself was, "Thank goodness for shrimp scampi and apartment fires!"
The End.
A/N: Whew! Moving my first FF over to "complete," and it feels great! Thanks for the continued encouragement, reviews, and love throughout. Sorry for the breaks there were from time to time, especially when I got too wrapped up in fic #2. Thanks for sticking with me, and I hope you enjoyed the story!
For those of you who haven't seen it, I'm going to shamelessly self promote here- it's a crossover between Janet Evanovich and The Avengers. It isn't a Babe, but try it, I think you might like it. It's called When Star Spangled Plans Meet Bombshell Bounty Hunter Chaos and it is on this site. Trying to not get the URL eaten so I'll just say the usual prefix slash s/10564271/.