This is a Halloween story. It has Diesel in it, set somewhere before Book 12. We know about Rangeman and Haywood and Ella. Good enough, because this is clearly deep in AU territory, as time travel and Fate are involved. Think of it as paranormal. Don't sweat the petty stuff and don't pet the sweaty stuff.

Chapter 1

The evening shift had at least started off well and Tank had high hopes for the rest of the shift. There were no ops scheduled tonight and it would be simple monitor duty, hopefully quiet. The day shift had been quiet, with only a few very small issues on Ranger's standard work-a-holic 7am to 9pm shift and Ranger had handed the shift and watch authority over at 9pm, with nothing major to report. Day shift had a couple false alarms on residential accounts, quickly handled, to start, and then the Boss had spent most of the day doing paperwork in his office or meeting commercial clients.

According to Lester, who had seen Ranger's face after he'd gotten back from one of the client meetings, it looked very much like one of the bigger potential clients was going to be a no-go, more because Ranger didn't want to deal with the client than the client backing out. The client owned a chain of salons and spas and wanted the highest security for his business possible, but would not allow cameras or any kind of active monitoring because of privacy concerns and had rejected all four sets of potential security system plans Ranger had brought to the meeting. Ranger had many skills, and while he could drag out the well-dressed "Carlos Manoso, CEO" persona and be charming and work a room with potential clients in it, he also had a tolerance limit for bullshit and difficult clients and when he hit that limit, he was done being Carlos and he was done being charming. Today had apparently been one of those days.

It didn't help that Rangeman was also a peripheral part of a joint ATF/DEA op that had stalled out for lack of info – Ranger enjoyed that kind of job and wanted to be out in the field to see what kind of intel he could stir up on it, but Rangeman paperwork and meetings were taking up all of his available days and a chunk of his nights as well.

Tank knew there were days when Ranger wondered what the hell he was doing to himself, spending so much of his day behind a desk, and, more importantly, why. Only once had Tank pointed out to him that Ranger had been the one who decided to take his businesses out of the darker side, to drop most of the off-shore contracts and some of the on-shore jobs that took a walk on the wilder, grayer, less-legal side – all of it because of his relationship, or really non-relationship, with the woman who kept him at arm's length. That discussion hadn't gone well and Tank had never made the mistake of repeating it.

And, speaking of her, there had been no Stephanie Plum-related disasters or warnings on the day shift today, which Tank had regarded as a good day all-around and one that boded well for a calm night shift. The day shift reported that her trackers showed her starting her day at 10am, showing up to the bond office after stopping for coffee and donuts, hanging around for a few hours, and then doing what were probably two skip pick-ups during the day in reasonable parts of town, both successfully ending at the TPD offices. Two separate Rangeman patrol cars had passed by her locations as part of their day and reported that she and Lula seemed fine. An hour into the night shift she had been reported safe in her apartment after a weeknight dinner at her parents', with no visitors – no stalkers, attempted serial killers or insane grandmas and no Morelli and no Ranger keeping her company. Her car, an older silver Toyota SUV, was in the lot. Battered and dented though it might be, it had held up for several months now.

And, after a long and frustrating night, with only one hour left until he could hand the shift back off to Ranger, Tank had to groan when the Control Room flashed him a message about someone in the lobby who wanted to talk to Ranger, saying that it was important.

He pulled up the lobby camera feed and cursed. There, standing in the Rangeman lobby and grinning right into the camera, stood a tall, shaggy-haired, fit blonde man. "Fucking Diesel," Tank muttered. No good ever came of anything Diesel was involved in.

And even though there was no possible way Diesel could have heard him through three floors, the grin on his face got even bigger. Tank buzzed down to the lobby and told Hal to escort Diesel into the large conference room on three.

At this hour of the morning, Ranger was most likely already up and he'd be either out running or in the gym. Tank pulled up the gym feed and he was there, working out with the heavy bag. Tank winced at how hard Ranger was hitting the bag. Tank could guess the source of the frustration. Something had happened, a week ago, between Ranger and Stephanie Plum and he'd been in a foul mood since. "Rangeman," he said, turning on the audio for the gym camera, "we have a problem."

Ranger didn't even look up from his workout. "Handle it, Tank, you have another hour." His tone was curt and Tank almost sighed.

"Diesel's here. I'm having him escorted to Conference 3."

Ranger stopped, stilled the bag and rested his forehead on it. "Great. On my way."

-*#$%&*()

Tank and Ranger arrived in the conference room at the same time. Hal stood just outside the door in parade rest, and Ranger nodded to him as they went inside.

Diesel was looking out the small bullet-proof glass window of the room and took his time turning around to face them.

"Ranger, Tank," he said in greeting.

Ranger folded his arms and looked at him.

"Look, why don't we sit down?" Diesel said. "You know, chat some?"

"I have a busy schedule," Ranger said sharply. "Just tell us what you want."

"Yeah, well. I have a job for you. The job is simple. Or would have been, if not for a few twists."

"No job with you is ever simple. Whatever it is, I pass on it."

Diesel grinned again. "Hear me out first. The problem is that we also have the hand of Kismet here and Kismet is truly a bitch. You know her, you've been in her grasp before, you've got her sign from past ops all over you." Ranger lifted a skeptical eyebrow and Diesel laughed. "Yeah, really. You know when you've been out on a job or a mission that's gone FUBAR and then all the sudden everything just lines up spectacularly right – it's all connected, you've got a clean line of sight to the goal, and it's one clear groove? That's Kismet. You can plan all you want, calculate odds and equipment and intel, but without that breath of Kismet, it is not happening."

Tank could see that Ranger was not buying it. He was not so sure, himself. He'd watched Ranger plan ops, in the military and afterward, watched as Ranger put things together with meticulous attention to detail, with solid intel and preparation, and many ops had gone right from the start, but sometimes things just went to complete shit for no clear reason. Ranger's genius as a field op was his ability to react on the fly when things went south, to trust his instincts and somehow pull together the right outcome at the last moment. And if that wasn't some kind of kismet, then Tank had no idea what the word meant.

Ranger was clearly starting to lose his patience with Diesel. "This is a nice story, but why are you here?"

Diesel leaned back in the chair. "Because sometimes Kismet takes a hand in events and sometimes in a person or people. And when Kismet marks someone for a future op, the hand of Fate leaves a kind of mark or trail. And there are … things out there that pay attention to that mark. That seek to use a person who has been marked. And, in this case, it's a missing 13-year-old boy who is here in Trenton somewhere. He needs to be located ASAP and returned to his own timeline."

"And you want me to find this boy. A boy marked by the hand of fate." Ranger's hands were folded on the table in front of him. His face was calm, but Tank had known him long enough to know that he was about 5 minutes from tossing Diesel out on his ear. Maybe less.

Diesel leaned forward, smiling. "See, here is where it gets complicated. The head office isn't all that clear on how this worked. His father is a powerful man in his own right and can keep his son protected against the standard kind of hazards." Diesel flashed a smirk at Ranger at that point, and Tank had no idea why. "There were agents sent out to protect him from our kind of hazards, but the op went south. In order to get him to safety so that they could take care of the problem, they made an emergency decision to shift him out of that When, to a past When. But the agents … lost track of him."

Ranger's eyebrow went up "Lost track of him," he repeated. "A 13-year-old. From another time?" Tank mentally dropped Ranger's fuse to 30 seconds.

Diesel smiled. "Yes. Finding him so we can send him back would be a favor to me and my office, of course, but it's sort of a favor to you as well."

"To me? How is it a favor to me?"

"Because his name is Alejandro Carlos Manoso and he's the son of a potential future you."

Ranger froze. "My son?"

"The son of a potential future you, not necessarily the you of now." At Ranger's raised eyebrow, Diesel threw his hands in the air. "I don't work on the teams that deal with Time, past or future. They are all nuts from living in all the timelines." Tank glanced over at Ranger, fairly sure what Ranger thought of Diesel pointing a finger at other people's sanity. "But, as I understand it, time branches as it goes forward and the boy is from one of the many future possibilities that branch off of this Now."

"And who is his mother?"

"Oh," Diesel grinned. "That would be telling. Not supposed to give out spoilers for potential futures."