Disclaimer: All familiar characters belong to Janet Evanovich. I am not making any money from this.

My Train of Thought Has Left the Station by Debra8652

Chapter 2

Ranger's POV

I've survived being captured, tortured, shot, and stabbed in my military and security business career. Although no medals were handed out unless you count my wedding band, I can now add another accomplishment to the list - I survived last night's date with my Babe.

After an extremely busy work week, we were able to enjoy dinner at Rossini's Friday night. It could be because we'd hardly had an extra minute to catch up with our lives this past week but Babe's thought processes were all over the place last night. I'd normally say that her thoughts come out of left field but I'm not entirely sure she was in the stadium at all, or even had it in her field of vision.

It's Saturday morning and I'm catching up on the never-ending paperwork while my Babe and Hal are in pursuit of one of her skips who tends to over imbibe on the weekends. Hopefully, Gary McGarry is nursing a hangover and will be an easy capture for them.

Less than two hours later, Babe and a blushing Hal are back on the control room floor. They've already captured McGarry, turned him into TPD and been to the bonds office to turn in their receipt to Connie. I tried to avoid asking why Hal was blushing but I'm not that strong. Turns out that, on the way back to Rangeman, Steph told Hal that she knew they would have an uneventful capture because her bra matched her underpants and it really makes her feel as if she has her life together. Poor Hal.

With her Rangeman physical fitness requirement she barely takes a breath before launching into a story she heard from Eddie Gazarra while they were at TPD. In an effort to crack down on impaired driving, Eddie told her that the field sobriety test now includes folding a fitted sheet.

As much as I hate doing it, I text Santos to rescue me for the second time in 12 hours. Note to self: Arrange some type of compensation for Hal and Santos. My next view is Steph and Santos in the breakroom getting coffee. She is emphatically pointing out a meme on her iPad - it's two orange cats where one is smacking the other one because the one being smacked isn't understanding something even though there is a clear diagram of the concept. I can't help but turn up the volume on the breakroom audio even though I know I will regret it. It turns out that Santos' latest girlfriend is suffering from very bad cramps and needs him to pick up some feminine hygiene products for her and Steph is explaining the concept of pads with wings vs pads without wings. I suspect that Steph will buy the necessary products whether out of compassion for a fellow woman or because she feels sorry for the woman being Santos' girlfriend.

I don't know if he finally understood but they have gone to their respective cubicles. The next thing I received is a screenshot of a text message that Steph received from "ML." "ML" is texting her mom to pick her up from a sleepover because the kids are loud and mean and the kids' dad keeps touching her. The return text from "Mom" says that no, she won't pick her up because "those are your kids and your husband." As I suspected, "ML" is Mary Lou. Poor Mary Lou.

My next contact with Babe is when she has me listen to a voice mail message from Valerie, who is at the gym in her never ending quest to lose her baby weight. I hear Valerie's voice claiming to someone that "I can't see you anymore - I am not going to let you hurt me like this again." In the background I hear the voice of her trainer saying, "It was a sit-up. You did one sit-up."

Maybe I'll tackle the paperwork later.

A/N Memes are matching bra and panties, sobriety test and folding a fitted sheet, sleepover with mean and loud kids, you did one sit-up. Guest reviewer - I hope I did justice to your orange cat meme! Reviews are appreciated!