**Author's Note:

jkgk: About Hal thinking about Stephanie is labeled under entertainment, I feel that when Evanovich brought that up in the books it was a really sensitive issue. It made Stephanie second guess her worth to Ranger, and in a way it distanced them both from each other. Sometimes guys need an excuse to act in a certain manner; Hal's reasoning that Stephanie was living up to her job description is clearly just a façade, a way to justify his actions of listening in on private moments.

His concern is portrayed as he guides her through this situation, and would I like to say that Rangeman's employees tend to live by the rule that 'actions speak louder than words' or in this case thoughts. So he had a lapse in judgment, Hal's young. There is a chance he might get over it, but hopefully not. He is too much fun the way he is.

Chapter 2

"Where's Stephanie?" Hal inquired as he made his way to the triage desk as soon as he stepped past the hospital's sliding glass doors.

"I'm afraid she in no longer with us" the nurse patiently stated without even looking up from the clip board that she cradled against her hip.

"WHAT?" Hal shouted drawing every eye to his massive form. "How can she be dead?" he whispered solemnly while bracing his forearms against the reception desk to cradle his head.

"Oh, I'm sorry hun, I only meant that she arrived thirty minutes ago and is currently in surgery." The nurse explained.

"We're in a hospital for God's sake woman, a HOSPITAL!" Hal yelled while raising his open hands in an action that reminded her of choking someone. "You shouldn't tell someone that the person they are here to see is 'no longer with us.'" He said with additional air quotes, which to the occupants of the waiting room found an amusing action coming from such a big man.

"Sir, I need you to calm down" the nurse replied in a monotone voice that lacked any sympathy.

"Calm down, you want me to calm down! How long have you been doing this you uncaring hag…" Hal began to rant when Tank stepped out of the elevators and motioned Hal to follow him.

As soon as the elevator doors closed, Tank turned to Hal with a raised eyebrow and a slight smirk. "Uncaring Hag, huh?" Tank asked.

"Well she told me that Stephanie was dead!" Hal said his voice still set the highest tone he could achieve while still having all his fun parts in the right place.

"She told you this, or implied it?"

"Well…" Hal began, when suddenly the elevator halted and with a ding opened to the third floor to reveal Ranger standing with his arms crossed staring down at them both, which considering Hal was three inches taller and Tank a good five was quiet an accomplishment.

"What took you so long?" Ranger asked.

"Nothing boss" Hal replied.

"That bitch down in triage giving you trouble?" Ranger asked while stepping out of the way and leading the two men to a small room stuffed full of black fatigues and solemn faces. "She does that every time someone in all black walks through the doors, I'm thinking about hiring her for a PR representative."

One empty vending machine later, which was the only time Ranger allowed his men to gorge on anything other than tasteless health food, a slim lanky kid sporting a set of scrubs walked out to the waiting room.

"We excavated a slug from her upper left thigh, with minor muscle damage." Doogie Howser said trying to look Ranger in the face while simultaneously dodging his stare. "The bullet that penetrated her upper right arm went in and out without hitting anything vital." His restlessness became more obvious as he began to inch backward towards the door.

Ranger said nothing, no nod of understanding or acknowledgment of any kind directed towards the new doctor. The kid swallowed hard but continued none the less. "She'll be released within forty eight hours, and should stay off her feet for a while."

"So what you're trying to tell us is that she should stay primarily on her back?" Hal joked, yet Ranger cut off his laughter when his gaze swiveled his direction. Ranger attention turned back to the doctor who seemed to be standing quite a few feet farther away from Ranger than before, actually it seemed that all the men in the room where hugging the walls. No one dared speak, let alone breathed.

"That's exactly what he is saying, anyone volunteering to stay with her?" Ranger asked even though his glare demanded silence. His glare was the equivalent of a male dominance challenge and he was the alpha male.

"Well then I guess that leaves the job to me." Ranger stated looking back at Doogie Howser. "When can I see her?"

"Well, only immediate family is allowed in the room when she awakes" Doogie said in a fragile voice, he was almost at the door now and his eyes swept the side of the room back in forth telegraphing that he was about to bolt.

"Well then where is she" Ranger asked "I'm her husband" he stated with a shit eating grin. His voice was low and tempting, asking for the kid to question his relations with Stephanie. And in reality, the little tirade in the street had not satisfied his need for either one of two things: hand to hand combat or sex.

"She's…um…she's in Recovery"

"I'm Officer Morelli with Trenton PD, I'm here to see Stephanie Plum" he said to the head nurse, flashing a quick smile and his badge.

"Wow she's a popular girl tonight" the nurse stated before paging the doctor. Morelli just nodded, he hated hospitals. It was like a crime scene in every room masquerading as a sterile environment. Everyone who truly kicked it in Trenton did so in the confines of their own home, hospitals were only for accidents and crime victims.

Morelli met with the kid who called himself a doctor. He gave the rundown of Stephanie's injuries as if it was a laundry list. Something's were just not adding up, three dead and only two holes in Stephanie? She had always been lucky, but this was nothing less than a miracle.

"I need to speak with Ms. Plum" Morelli stated.

"Oh, it's MRS. Plum and she is in room 305 with her husband." The kid said pointing the way.

Morelli began down the hallway before stopping in mid-step. "Husband?"

Morelli slammed open the door to room 305, startling Hal. Ranger was quietly leaning back in a chair; his head resting on his thumb and fore finger, his stance was wide and undisturbed by the sudden entrance. He looked relax, yet they both knew that if the situation warranted it, Ranger would be on his feet in an instant.

"Husband?" Morelli directed the question towards Ranger. Ranger just silently inclined his head in agreement.

"So, MR. PLUM" Morelli started by emphasizing the title to a level reaching complete sarcasm. Had Stephanie been awake, she might have rolled her eyes so far in her head that she would given herself brain damage.

"You wanna lay what went down on me?" Morelli asked.

Hal seemed to be nonexistent next to the two men, and made himself as small as possible. Considering that he was well over six feet tall, this was a feat only made possible by imagination. This was soon disintegrating when both men stood looking at him.

"Well?" Ranger asked. Hal's heart slowly became louder and louder. "Where's the disk?"

Hal shuffled around patting his chest, jacket, and pants for the disk. Damn cargo pants have too many pockets, Hal thought. Finally in the last pocket he found the second disk, minus the ten minutes of what he referred to as "white noise" he had already handed the first one over to Ranger. Morelli looked at him hard before reaching out and grabbing the disk.

"Talk" Morelli commanded to Hal. It was a wonder he only has a dog.

"At approximately 14:07 a call came in from Stephanie's SUV initiated by the emergency response button. She stated her emergency, informing control that she was in a shoot out with three guys and was wounded. Ranger was near her location and upon his arrival I was to disengage the feed transmitting the emergency response. Which is what you are now currently holding." Of course the last part was a bold faced lie, and two out of the three of them knew this.

Morelli's gaze swung from Hal to Ranger, and pointly raised an eyebrow to continue.

"I surveyed the scene, three men dead, with multiple gun shots. Stephanie was wedged between the driver's seat and the steering wheel. She was shot in the right arm and left thigh. Emergency response vehicles were ten minutes out, and we waited at the scene until arrival" Ranger's response left a lot to the imagination, Hal was focused solely on him.

"Anything else you're leaving out?" Morelli asked. He already knew the answer to the question, yet had to ask anyways.

"There's a lot of things I'm leaving out" Ranger simply stated. "Most of it for your own benefit."

Morelli's eyes flickered towards the bed, and the men stared down at Stephanie's unconscious form. "I'm going to have the hospital call me when she wakes for questioning. Oh, and send some of your men home, it looks like SWAT has camped out in the Hospital. It's making people nervous."

And with those parting words he was through the door and gone. The tension seemed to ease out of the room, Hal caught Ranger's eye and smiled while he nodding. Ranger just simply stared.

"Get the men out of here, I'll report in to central in a few hours" Ranger said dismissing Hal.

Hal was halfway through the door when Ranger spoke again "You know that the main reason you are still here, is because Stephanie likes you?"

There was a long pause before Hal nodded in agreement. His shoulders indicated that he found the words, somewhat comforting.

"When she stops, that's it" Ranger spoke.

Hal hurried out of the hospital, avoiding the men's eyes and making a dash for the car. Tank barreled into the passenger seat next to him, not letting him escape.

"Ranger knows" Hal said, his voice lacking emotion as shock and fear replaced his usual good humor.

"Hmm" Tank said. It seemed to be enough to fill the silence. Halfway to the command center Hal blurted out Ranger's last words to him.

The car was filled with silence for the rest of the ride. As Hal maneuvered the car into the underground parking garage, Tank finally spoke.

"You know it's going to take a lot for Stephanie to turn on you, right?" Tank asked. Most of the time Tank fit his name, he was big and opposing. He didn't look like he spoke a lot, and for the most part that was true. Then there were times when he really just surprised the shit out of you. Kind of like when he talked about his kittens. This happened to be one of those times.

Hal let out a bark of laughter. He clapped tank on the back as he stepped into the elevator. He began to relax a little more as he leaned back against the cool stainless steel walls.

"That is until she finds out about that recording." Tank said before exiting through the doors, leaving Hal standing there speechless.

As soon as Hal stepped out of the hospital room, Stephanie spoke. "Stop being so hard on him, he's not exactly a master sleuth." Her voice was raspy, and startled Ranger. Not that he let her know this tidbit; it would ruin his batman persona completely. Instead he turned around and brought her some water.

Stephanie tried to reach for the water with her right arm, and strung together a medley of curses that made Ranger's eyebrow raise in concern. His eyes smiled with amusement as he unscrewed the cap and placed the bottle into her left hand.

"Although you might want to consider buying him a few spy movies to help him out, I mean the man was breathing right into the intercom and thought we couldn't hear him." Stephanie joked. Her head was swaying slightly due to the drugs in her system and she completely missed her mouth and spilled the water down herself.

"Tell me, does he have any siblings?" Stephanie asked unconcerned about the water.

Ranger carefully grabbed the bottle out of her hands and tilted her head back making her eyes glaze over. "I'm trying to give you some water, babe. Not ravish you." He stated as her eyes finally closed.

She shook her head with a slight acknowledgement before he tipped the bottle towards her mouth. She swallowed hungrily, and he let her have a breather. Her next drink was not from the bottle as she expected, but met with warm lips that consumed her with a bliss that was rivaling the effects of the morphine being pumped into her.

Ranger pulled away, and Stephanie reluctantly allowed him to.

"You were right back at the scene." Ranger said softly sitting back into the chair next to her bed. "Unfortunately the next two days are going to feel like relentless foreplay, without your donuts or sex to comfort you."

Stephanie would have told him what she thought about that last comment, except that it seemed that everything was going dark, even the smirk that adorned Ranger's face. He suddenly seemed too far away and she did not have enough energy to yell that loud.

Stephanie slowly woke up, and realized that although she believed she had only blinked, the room changed from daylight to night time. It was too dark to truly see anything but she felt that Ranger was to her left. Her body was hyperaware, much like the times she awoke to find his presence in her bedroom. Her body relaxed as he pushed the button dispensing more medicine and she slowly drifted up to the ceiling.

The next time she came around, she heard the voices of at least four men. She peeked open her eyes, mostly out of confusion.

"Well I can't be in my room, because you're all here at once. So I have either died or I am in the hospital" Stephanie reasoned out loud. She pushed the button that dispensed another warm flood of morphine into her system before she sighed. "Definitely a hospital, this is the shit." She smiled as her head became to heavy and she decided to just lay back down.

All eyes turned to in her direction, yet seemed to look through her. She turned to her left and was inches from Ranger. Stephanie jumped back and gasped. "Wow dude, you scared me." She stated and seemed to think about that comment for a bit "I understand him now."

"Babe?" Ranger inquired, he did not say anything but that one word, but it seemed to be enough.

"Mooner" Stephanie smiled "I completely get it!"

"There's an inner peace that you can only reach from where I am right now" she stated, "you see because my arm and my leg hurts and I just don't care, you can understand any of this because you're not on the drip."

"Babe, I need you to talk to me about what happened."

"Ok, let me think about it…you were there" she said as she looked at Ranger "oh and you were there, but not really, you were kind of like a bodiless voice" Stephanie said looking at Hal as his face seem to turn five shades redder "it was kind of creepy now that I think about it, I mean where were you?" she asked looking towards the ceiling.

"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" Tank said in a deep bass that was his voice.

"I think it's starting to wear off a bit" Ranger said looking at Stephanie. "Babe, before you take another hit from your miracle button, think about the last thing you were doing" His voice seemed to cascade from room like a tranquil voice, hypnotizing.

"Miracle button," Stephanie laughed "I thought you were supposed to take care of that for me" she directed the question to her left.

"We're not getting anything from her, guys" Ranger began instructing the troops out when Stephanie chimed in with a 'that's what he said' joke.

Ranger just looked down at her as he stood up "we might as well regroup later."

"Wait, hold on, I think we can still find something useful out of what she says" said Tank. Then other three men stopped in their tracks. You see usually Tank follows orders it was almost unheard of that he would actually go against orders. Ranger nodded and the men sat back down.

"Ok bombshell what have you got to tell us" Hal said. This was the first time he looked her in the eye, and his coloring had toned down to almost a natural color.

Hey everyone, I'm trying to get at least forty reviews before I can get started on some of the steamier chapters. Please help me out here!

**First off, I wrote this chapter to accompany the previous one without the story reading like a diced tomato. Next chapter, big promises here, will be mostly from Stephanie's POV and an account of how she got into that situation. Then probably one more chapter for all you fluff fans out there. So to sum it up, two more chapters that will have what we all have been waiting for Ranger/Stephanie action!

More Thoughts on Rangemen:

Sometimes I read Hal to be really young in the books, and I feel that would compliment some of his cockiness that I use here. I like the idea that you only see a sliver of Ranger's ability to joke with his men, and only when it is concerning Stephanie. Yet even though he does joke, his men still back off. Mostly because Stephanie is Ranger's, hands down. In a way that is romantic…and sexist. But hey, we are all full of contradictions.