Warnings: Rated M
Spoilers: Takes place after Fearless Fourteen.
A/N: Forgive me for attempting an angsty piece. You can thank dee768nj and Alfonsia.d for inspiring my temporary melancholia. You guys can really get a grip on a girl's heart. This is planned as a short series, but I still intend to return to my usual slapstick in No Price. This story is not a song fic per se, but after reading some angst, then listening to my MP3 playlist, a song I never would have thought would fit Ranger and Stephanie, suddenly fit. If you don't like the story, don't blame it on Dee or Alf. Blame it on Cowboy Mouth. I take no responsibility!
Let it Go
Prologue
Jenny Says, by Cowboy Mouth
I've got no reason for the things I fear
The things that plague me when I see and hear
A dime's a nickel and a nickel's none
I throw myself into the Sunday sun
That summer Sunday when you went insane
You said you're going, but instead I came
I'm throwing oranges in an applecart
The ties that bind are tearing me apart
Jenny says turn off the radio
Jenny says turn off the lights
Jenny says turn off the video
You beat yourself up to bring yourself down
Let it go, let it go, let it go
Let it go, let it go, let it go
When the world keeps coming down on me
I let it go
I've got no reason for the things I say
She turned toward me then she turned away
There's lot's of voices in a modern world
They take their toll upon a modern girl
I've got no reason for the things I fear
The things that plague me when I see and hear
I press my finger on an itchy trigger
What once was small is now so much bigger
I've got no reason for the things I do
The dealer deals and now the deal is screwed
You throw your cards up on the playing table
My name is Cain and I am now unable
I've got no reason for the things I fear
The things that plague me when I see and hear
A dime's a nickel, a nickel's none
I throw myself into the Sunday sun
Jenny says turn off the radio
Jenny says turn off the lights
Jenny says turn off the video
You beat yourself up to bring yourself down
Let it go, let it go, let it go
Let it go, let it go, let it go
When the world keeps coming down on me
I let it go
Ranger's POV
It's been six months since I've spoken to her. I left the country on a government mission just after the Brenda assignment. The government mission was strictly voluntary and had it been offered a year I go, I likely would have turned it down. As things stood, I no longer saw a reason to decline. My business runs smoothly in my absence at the hands of Tank. My family is resigned to my lifestyle, and while it didn't make them happy, they supported my decisions. Stephanie…Stephanie seems to have made her choice.
Something changed in Stephanie in the months preceding the Brenda assignment. I couldn't put my finger on what it was but it was clear the change affected our relationship. Or whatever the fuck it was. She pulled away.
Word on the street is she's living with Morelli.
Is she truly happy? I guess on the surface she might be, if happiness is defined as living up to 'Burg expectations and taking the easier, more traveled path. I understand she still works for Vinnie, but she has been taking only the easy skips and is consistently calling in for back up when necessary so I'm assuming Morelli is pleased. Not my concern.
Do I still love her? Absolutely. Unequivocally. There is no explanation, no logic as to the how and the why my soul has somehow become absorbed by her. It will never belong to another. It never belonged to me. I didn't even believe I had a soul until I realized I'd lost it to her.
In a phone conversation we'd had six months ago, I'd jokingly mentioned that I didn't know why I still put up with her. She said "It's because you like me." She used to reply, "It's because you love me."
Then I mentioned that the things I was doing weren't getting me where I wanted to go. She said, "Then maybe you need to change your destination."
I am inwardly damning myself for always wanting to appear as though I am an island, as though I don't need anyone, as though I don't need her. A braver man would have asked her what she meant by her statement.
Was she telling me to let her go? To find someone else with the soul I no longer have?
Or did she truly believe my ultimate destination was simply getting her into my bed? I won't deny that I ache and have ached to hold her body every night, to bury my face in her curls, to kiss and suck on the delicate skin behind her ear, to bury myself so deeply in her that she'll ache from phantom pains of loss in the hours I'm not inside her. But I want more.
I want to be her everything. I want to be her lover, her best friend. While I see no need and have no desire to be married in the eyes of "burg" or even God, I want her to belong with me and to me. I want to belong to her. For the first time in my life I want to share myself, both my joys and my burdens. I want to claim a piece of happiness and the promise of a future. And for the first time in my life, I feel an inexplicable longing to see her belly swell with my child. I feel the violent urge to vomit thinking about her creating a life with anybody but me. She is my life.
But we are at an impasse. She has pulled away. In the past, I would have seen this as a signal to apply more pressure. To ramp of the game, if you will. But this is no game.
The definition of insanity is to continue to do the same things and expect different results. This was never about my destination, and if I told her that, she would choose not to believe me because then it would make her life too difficult and she would have to make herself vulnerable. She would have to think. She would have to take a chance. She would have to make a choice.
Stephanie would like the world to believe that she hates having decisions made for her and wants to be able to make her own choices. The truth is she only wants a hand in the decision making when the choices are not difficult and not life altering. The truth is, when the choices she is presented with are too complex, or the results could cause anyone in her life- including herself- pain, she buries her head in the sand and lets things just happen to her or she'll simply coast along, taking the easy road where the lanes are clearly marked and the mile markers are visible.
I know she isn't perfect. Nobody is. She doesn't take good care of herself. She's too trusting and naïve. She repeatedly puts herself in situations she is ill prepared for. She is insecure. I blame her mother and later Morelli for that. I know if she were mine, I would eventually be able to convince her that she is beautiful, far too beautiful for the likes of me. That she is smart. That her instincts are always dead on and often better then mine. I could convince her that she is my life. That she is the other half of me.
But it is her insecurity in relationships that has driven me to this point. I have little doubt that if I dragged her out of Morelli's house, out of Morelli's arms, and promised her the sun and stars, if I stepped directly into Morelli's place as if he were simply a book mark, that she would come to me.
I want more. I don't want to be the answer to her fear of being alone.
I know that she loves Morelli. I also know that if he were the man who completely owned her heart, she would have never found room in it for me. I know that she is loyal. I know that if she felt the all encompassing love for him required of life-long lovers to forsake all others, she would never have let my lips touch hers.
I hated the position I put her in, but I could not help myself. I cannot be in a room with her and not touch her, or kiss her, or press my body against her, but it was more than that. I had felt compelled to show her, without words that she could ignore, deny or misinterpret, that he was not the man for her. Show her that her own reactions and her responses to my actions should tell her what her heart already knew; that even if the man for her wasn't me, it certainly wasn't him. Yes, I wanted her for myself, but even more, I wanted her ultimate happiness.
I would not badger her and force my will on her trying to convince her of what she should already know. She was a grown woman who should know her own mind and quite frankly, I didn't want to 'win her love'. Love is a gift, not something to be campaigned for or logistically planned like a game of Risk. She sees it as a battle and she has erected her white flag. Only, she did not give up to me. She didn't even give up on me. Long ago she gave up expecting anything of me. She gave up on herself.
I've been back from my mission for two days. I sit at my desk in my office staring at the blinking light indicating there it a call on hold. It's Stephanie.
I pick up the handset as if it were a revolver and I'm playing Russian roulette with
five bullets in the chamber.
A/N: My first attempt at full melancholy angst, so let me know if you would like to see where this goes. I'd also appreciate feedback on how I'm getting emotions across. Constructive criticism is welcome but please be gentle!