A/N - Warnings: this is a death story, a major character has died. Written as a 1,000 word challenge to myself, which I more-or-less hit. I wrote this on the 12th anniversary of my own cornea transplant surgery, to honor the kind person who donated their corneas at death that I might see: I'd be functionally blind otherwise. Originally posted up on AO3 and lightly edited since then.
I drive in from my home in Cape May to see Ranger at least twice a year; at least once a year at the military cemetery in Beverly where he's buried, and once a year I go to the hospital in Trenton where the young man who received Ranger's transplanted heart works. Ranger's heart was a good heart, a strong heart, and the man who has it now takes good care of it. He'd been a medical student at the time and after the transplant surgery he was inspired to become a trauma surgeon. He's very respected in his field, well-liked, and he runs marathons and keeps himself in excellent shape, ever grateful for the gift and the extended life it gave him. He's married now and has two beautiful little girls. I don't ever say anything to the young doctor, I just check in on him.
Since I am at the hospital in Trenton already, I usually see if Laura Morelli is at the hospital. She still works there part-time as a nurse and if she's there she'll show me pictures of the Morelli kids. Their oldest boy is 12 now and looks so much like Joe. Usually we just chat over coffee in the cafeteria and she brings me up to speed on all the Burg events; births, deaths, marriages, divorces. Laura has a kind heart and she doesn't ever pass along any gossip or speak ill of anyone, not even her in-laws, whom I know are a trial to her. When their first child was born, Joe made the decision to bench himself and took a desk job at the TPD. I'm pretty sure that Joe's decision to get out of the field was influenced by his being there with me at the hospital when Ranger was declared brain dead and they made the decision to harvest his organs for transplants, as per his wishes.
My grandmother passed on a year after I left Trenton; her wild, glorious heart just stopped in her sleep one night. I made sure that she had the fabulous funeral she would have wanted and sometimes I think I can feel her smiling down at me from wherever she ended up. A year later my mother developed ovarian cancer and was gone within 6 months. It broke my quiet father's heart. He moved in with Val and Albert and hangs around the VFW most days. Val's girls are grown and gone, scattered to college and jobs and their own families, all of them outside New Jersey. When Grandma Mazur died, Val and I were surprised to have inherited quite a bit of money. It allowed Val and Albert to buy a much larger house outside the Burg and me to buy my small house and shop in Cape May.
Ranger's daughter Julie moved to the west coast. After Ranger's death, she became a very wealthy young lady. She went to Stanford, got an MBA, and now she runs a venture capital firm in the Bay Area and she's been launching some start-up firm that is getting a lot of press. I get a letter and a Christmas card from her every year. She signs her name with kisses and hearts. Ranger left me money as well, but I made Tank, as his executor, pass it all on to Julie. The last thing I ever wanted was to come into his money because Ranger died for me. Tank and I had gone around about it a little, but he'd finally accepted my decision.
After Ranger's death, Rangeman disintegrated. I watched as Tank, now CEO of the company, slowly lost the faith and the heart for the work. Two years later, Rangeman was broken up and sold. Tank moved to Texas, where his family is from, and works in corporate security. We write each other several letters a year – two lonely single people, holding on to Ranger the only way we know how. In his letters, he tells me stories about how they met, things that they did, places they went, how they set up Rangeman. I tell him stories about the tourists who come to my little shop in Cape May and the funny things that happen. We always say we should meet somewhere, but we never do.
Lester and Bobby went into the wind on assignment, but I never heard from them again. Tank mentioned Bobby once in passing in a letter, so I know he got back from assignment, but I don't know about Lester. Most of the guys scattered to other areas. Hector and I stayed in touch, but when his nephew got involved with a gang, Hector was killed in the crossfire.
The guys never once blamed me for Ranger's death and somehow that made it harder. They were so supportive, so stoic during everything. I wanted them to be as angry with me as I was at myself and they weren't. They were as grief-stricken as I was, in their own ways, but they never faulted me. Watching Tank slowly fall apart afterward was almost as hard as watching Ranger on life support, kept alive only by the machines, had been. That entire week by Ranger's bedside I'd just replayed everything in my mind – the skip; the warehouse; the gunfire; my panicked call to Ranger; his entry into the warehouse, ignoring the crossfire in an attempt to get to me; the shots that took him down. If I'd called for help sooner, if I hadn't ignored my spidey sense and kept the higher bond file instead of turning it over to Rangeman, if Ranger hadn't been so determined to get me out of yet another mess like every other time he'd ever come to my rescue, if Ranger had taken the time to put full body armor on, if Ranger hadn't broken his own rules about always going into situations with backup ... if, if, if.
I'm glad someone is taking good care of Ranger's heart now and using it to live a full and complete life. I've had a lot of years to reflect and if I could go back in time, I'd take much, much better care of that heart while it was still in his body.
Me? My name is Stephanie Plum. I used to be a bounty hunter and my heart stopped a long time ago, too.