This story is based upon characters created by Janet Evanovich. I don't own them, I only play with them for entertainment purposes only.

When Stephanie wakes in the hospital, she doesn't know who she is or how she got there. Will she be able to remember who hurt her before they try again? Will Ranger's struggle with protecting Stephanie lead him to pull away from her when she needs him the most? Rated M for later chapters. Babe story but no Cupcakes are hurt.

I opened my eyes and couldn't see anything but darkness. Perhaps a nightmare woke me and it was still the middle of the night. I tried to reach the nightstand and turn on the light, but my body wouldn't respond. A feeling of weightlessness enveloped me and I was no longer sure that I even lay in my bed. The room held no shape and I had the strangest feeling that I was floating in the darkness. I should have been afraid, terrified that I didn't know what was happening to me, but I felt only a calm curiosity.

I continued to float.

The room remained dark, but I began to hear faint noises. The random murmurings never amounted to much and soon stopped holding my interest. Where was the light? Surely, there is a lamp or light switch around here somewhere.

Time was a fuzzy notion, but soon I began to grow tired. I decided to rest my eyes for a little while. Perhaps things would make more sense when I woke.

When next I opened my eyes, the darkness didn't surprise me. I heard again the strange noises as before, but this time I noticed the repetition. Beep, beep, beep, whoosh. Beep, beep, beep, whoosh. It continued almost as background music and lulled me back to sleep.

The weightlessness in my body began to dissolve when I woke again, and soon I could tell that I was lying down and gravity had resumed. I looked around, but everything was still dark and my surroundings felt no more familiar than they had the last time I looked. Mixed in with the darkness, however, I began to see bursts of color and light. It started out faintly, but soon the red and orange explosions began to resemble a firework display. As the colors increased in size I began to feel a pain creeping into my body.

Almost as soon as I felt the pain I heard the noises again. It sounded different this time though. The beeping was irregular and faster than it had been. The lights had gotten so big that it was just one solid mass of red that surrounded me. I blinked and a hot-white light burned my eyes. I squinted and felt the pain in my head increase as I blinked a few more times. Soon the light dimmed and I found myself looking into a pair of warm brown eyes.

The muscular man sitting beside me wore black cargo pants, and a skin-tight black t-shirt. His brown hair was pulled into a messy pony tail at the nape of his neck, and his five o'clock shadow looked to be about a week old. Even beneath his unkempt appearance, I could see that he was an exceptionally attractive man. His eyes, however, looked both wary and haunted, as if the weight of the world lay on his shoulders.

I continued my silent appraisal and he continued to look at me as though he were waiting for me to say something. I had a nearly uncontrollable urge to touch his face, and soothe his sad eyes, but it seemed too intimate a gesture for someone I didn't know. Then again, he was holding my hand… As I contemplated how nice his hand felt in mine, he leaned towards me and used his other hand to tuck a curly strand of hair behind my ear.

"You scared me, Babe." He said.

I looked back at him in confusion; how did I scare him, and why did he call me Babe. Was that my name? Wait… my name… I didn't know my name. I tried hard to think of it, but there was nothing there to recall.

The beeping I heard earlier began to speed up and I realized that the heart monitor was advertising my fear. What happened? Why was I here? Who am I?!

The pounding in my head increased and I could no longer focus even as I heard more people enter the room. There were new voices speaking in urgent tones but in words I couldn't understand.

"Calm down, Babe, you're OK." I heard through the fog.

I brought my free hand to my head to try to alleviate the pain, but instead found myself drifting back into the darkness. My eyes closed and I let the weightlessness take over once again.

A/N - This is my first ever fan fiction and I'm looking for some honest feedback. Is it worth continuing? Thanks, Chica.