Although it's short, a few things had me considering this as a potential story, but the song "I Don't Feel A Thing" by Soldier Hard got me writing it. The bumper sticker mentioned can be bought online. Everyone and everything familiar belongs to Janet.

"This is what you were describing when you were talking about Julie's early years, isn't it? And that's why this guy is just sitting there taking all of that crap?" Steph asked me.

In the lot of the diner where Steph and I had just picked up lunch, my eyes flicked briefly to her before returning to the couple arguing in a car two over from where our Cayenne is parked. I amended that thought, only the woman is arguing. The driver is sitting behind the wheel with the engine off and the driver's window down so he could flick the ashes from his cigarette out of it.

"Yes," I answered.

Rachel and I didn't have a relationship beyond creating Julie, but even if we had, she would never have understood my silences, seeming disinterest in everything except my next deployment, and my not wanting to expose my child to an emotionally devoid or volatile father, depending what mood I was in when approached.

The more Rachel yelled at me and pushed me to be, and to do, more for Julie than I felt capable of at the time, the more I pulled back from my child, my own family, and my life. I'd accepted the fact that I couldn't feel anything anymore beyond what adrenaline produced or rage when things went to shit, so I just focused what was left of me on completing my missions when I was away ... and committed myself to doing my job well when I came home.

Then I met Stephanie. And like a switch had been flipped ... I started to feel everything again, including hope that I could look, feel, and behave, normally like I had before. That's the main reason why I couldn't walk away even when Morelli had been holding on with a death grip the idea of marrying her. Without Stephanie beside me, the numbness returned and the all-encompassing hopelessness latched onto me and refused to let go.

"If someone screamed at me the way she's doing to him," Steph is saying to me now, "my head would explode long before I managed to get out all the names I would have to call him in order to calm even slightly down."

It took her weeks of us seeing each other for her to finally say with heartbreaking conviction that she loves me, but once she did ... I knew she could handle all aspects of me and would not run from them.

"But what did you do on the days you felt like you deserved the names Morelli, Vinnie, or your mother, called you?" I asked. "Or felt their callous treatment of you was completely justified?"

She sighed. "I closed my eyes and absorbed every syllable of what they screamed at me ... with no energy left to form clever comebacks. I kept right on believing that I was the worthless screw-up they accused me of being."

"But not anymore," I reminded her, reaching for her hand.

She squeezed mine in return. "No, not anymore because of you. And I'm going to pay that particular kindness forward by sticking my nose into their business. Thank you for not letting us come to that," she said, gesturing again to the couple we've been watching, "by letting me see your 'other life', instead of immediately slamming the door between it and me."

She correctly interpreted the 'I Survived The VA' bumper sticker on the couple's car. I'm not arguing with Steph even now, because there's more at stake here than just two strangers on the verge of a breakup. And I do want to avoid a police call for numerous reasons, the least of which being a Morelli-sighting.

"Hey!" Steph yelled, after we left the Porsche and she'd tapped on the passenger's window.

I was standing partially blocking her on the off chance more than just insults started flying.

The Camry door flew opened and an irate bottle-blond jumped out as if she'd just been ejected from the seat. I'm thinking it wouldn't be the first time someone pictured her being propelled into orbit.

"What?" She demanded of Stephanie. "Can't you see we're in the middle of something here?"

"Looks like you're the only one involved here," Steph pointed out.

"What the fuck else is new?" The blond said. "I'm the only one who does anything! Not that you're even listening to me, Efren, but don't bother denying it. I've carried your ass while you've just been sitting on yours."

"Efren," I said, getting his attention in my own way by using what Steph calls my 'Commander voice', "doesn't look interested in denying anything, or engaging in a fight with you, for that matter, in the middle of a parking lot."

This man held my stare with a thousand-yard one of his own, but another drag on his cigarette was all the response she got. Not understanding how lucky she is for that being the only reaction he had to her shrieking, when a blowup is just as likely as a dismissive shrug, she continued berating her boyfriend.

"He doesn't work ... choosing to drink, smoke, and ignore me, instead. He refuses to talk to me about anything! When he drops me off here, he won't even come inside to meet my friends before my shift starts just to show that he gives a fuck at all about me. I'm dating a fucking robot!" She glared his way before dealing the death blow. "Well, I'm not anymore. Fuck you, Efren! You're officially on your own. I can't live like this."

Those are an interesting choice of words. Ones she would likely regret saying if Steph and I hadn't involved ourselves in their disagreement.

"Considering how you went all psycho on him," Steph told her, "I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to live like this more."

"You don't know what the fuck you're talking about."

"Unfortunately, I know too much about this ... and if someone's not willing to defend themselves from any and all forms of personal attack, there's a reason that's far more serious than he doesn't want to hang out with your friends. Did you ever ask him what he needs while demanding he fulfill yours?"

Stephanie has learned - and observed - a lot while working at Rangeman and around my men. And she's now able to recognize a Soldier-shaped ship about to go down, partly from really listening to me when I shared what I went through before meeting her, actively trying to be present yet continuing to feel detached from myself and my life. But she also gained major insight just from witnessing an almost identical one-sided fight between Cal and a woman he was seeing for only as long as it took her to say something to him similar to this blond's words, except she had referred to Cal as the 'Ice Man' instead of a robot.

My Babe said more than all of us combined could have when she'd stumbled into their fight which was still in-progress when Steph arrived to pick Cal up as her assigned partner that day. Stephanie had ended that fight with a parting finger-poke to Cal's soon-to-be-ex's shoulder and the words ... 'Only those who deserve to know Cal, get to.'

Steph had held Cal as he cried after he returned from an apprehension where a six-year-old boy had been stabbed by his own father right before Cal got there to arrest the asshole. Despite what we all had told him, Cal felt responsible for not getting there sooner and preventing the attack from occurring. When he couldn't hide his pain, or hide from Stephanie any longer, he gave in and sobbed in her arms as he recalled exactly how the boy, Rocco, had cried as he went through various levels of pain. Not only from the obvious physical discomfort he was experiencing, but also from the almost more painful feelings of betrayal due to his own father being the one to hurt him.

Cal doing what he could to comfort Rocco on-scene and at the hospital, and how he dry heaved against Steph's jean-clad legs after he returned to Rangeman, was anything but robotic. She's always been protective of me, and everyone of my men in each of my buildings, but that night ... something inside Stephanie had fundamentally changed.

She made sure Cal would be okay, going beyond that to ask Junior and Bobby to keep their four eyes on him, and then she pulled me aside to ask if there was a full-time position for her at Rangeman, stating me and my company needed her more than Vinnie could ever understand.

"I'm done talking to a brick wall," the blond, who definitely isn't Stephanie, bit out ... bringing my mind and eyes back to the current situation. "If he wants to be alone so badly, I'll finally give him what he wants ... which clearly isn't me!"

While Steph was watching the woman storm into the restaurant, I cautiously approached the driver's side window.

I felt eyes tracking me via the rearview mirror as I rounded the bumper. Efren's face remained emotion and expression-less, and he still didn't say a word, neither caring nor surprised to find himself alone after the dust began to settle. I never thought I'd say it, even mentally, but I'm grateful for Stephanie's cheeseburger-craving. I was given a chance to save another one today because of it.

I pulled a business card out of my wallet and passed it to the man. Judging by his vacant eyes, 'I don't care about anyone or anything' demeanor, and underlying 'Don't fuck with me' attitude, I'd guess he's been home for less than six months.

"If you need a job, excellent medical care, and plenty of people who understand you, call me," I told him. "The chance for a real life could depend on it."