65He'd gotten the notification that she'd pulled up to Haywood, parking her car in the spot that was always left open for her, and was headed up to five and, presumably, his office. His door was open and a few moments later she came in, holding a thick folder against her chest like a shield. Her face was tense and unhappy, and it made him sit up a little straighter in his chair, shut down his laptop and put the paperwork in front of him away.
"Steph," he said, neutrally.
She blew out a long breath and leaned back against the door frame. "Ranger. You have a minute?"
He had a lot of things on his schedule for the day, but she looked both resolute and sad and he'd shift around anything he had to. "I can make a few."
"This is gonna take more than a minute or two."
He nodded and picked up the phone, punching a button for the Control Room. "Hold all calls and take me offline." He didn't wait for an answer before hanging up.
She stared at him for a minute, reached behind her to pull his door shut and then locked it, walked over to his desk and dropped into the visitor's chair. Normally she'd just cross the room and prop herself on the edge of his desk when she wanted to talk to him. This change implied a long and potentially less-than-friendly discussion. He raised an eyebrow at her to get her to start talking.
She held out for 30 seconds and then blew out a big breath, leaning her head back over the edge of the chair. "I saw Joe yesterday."
He'd heard, through the grapevine, that she and Morelli had called it off several weeks ago. Again. It wasn't the second time or even the fourth time. These break-ups had always ended in a reconciliation and there was no reason to think this time would be any different.
But she'd started to voluntarily spend more time at Rangeman, working a couple hours a day doing research when she wasn't running down skips for Vinnie. Sometimes they had lunch together in his office, even though he'd once had a hard rule against food outside of the break room on the business floors. For her, for time with her, he'd break his own rules, and not just the minor ones like food in an office. All of them. And that was a problem. Over the years he'd put his rules in place for a reason.
She hadn't exactly run to him in this most recent break-up with Morelli, but she wasn't running away from him anymore, either. He'd pulled back on applying pressure, letting her decide, and they'd drifted into an odd little bubble of her making. Friends, companions, sharing casual meals at work, sometimes the occasional mind-melting kiss in the alley by the bond office, but nothing further. And, like all bubbles, he knew it was temporary and couldn't last.
It would end; she would go back to Morelli, for good some day. That was the way it had to be, for her and for him, no matter how he felt about it. But every time he saw her, every time he touched her, it was harder and harder to remember why.
"You two going to go another round now?" He kept his voice neutral and folded his hands on his desk. She'd come to talk to him and she'd tell him what was on her mind, sooner rather than later. She could evade, deny and deflect when she was questioned and didn't want to share information, but when she wanted to know something, she was usually direct and tenacious. Maybe she'd come to pop the bubble they'd been living in.
Her eyes narrowed and she snorted. "No. We're done. Finito," she said and stood to put the folder down on the desk in front of him. "That doesn't mean he's done trying to run my life and make decisions for me."
He looked at the folder. Plain manila, several inches thick, stuffed with a variety of paperwork. No label on the exterior. He kept silent.
She slid the folder across his empty desktop toward him. Some of the paperwork spilled out and he recognized some of the letterheads on the papers. Trenton PD, New Jersey State Police, New York State Police, FBI, CIA, ATF, DEA, NSA, Homeland, Interpol. US Army. He could also see long sections of black redacted text bars on some of the paperwork.
"Joe warned me about you and gave me this dossier. Apparently he's been researching you for years. He told me that I had no idea who or what you really are or the kinds of things you really do, and that I needed to read through this folder carefully and take off my blinders before I made a big mistake and got hurt." She put her hands on her hips and jutted her chin out in defiance of being told what to do. Very Steph.
"Mistake?" he asked.
"I told him that I was doing some work for Rangeman. That we were spending some time together as friends..." she looked away from him, "maybe on the way to something more. He said I needed to be running the other way as fast as possible."
He reached out and slid the folder to him. "And did you read through it?" He opened it and started reading through the documents. Some of them were official and some of them were Morelli's case notes in his cramped scribble. The documents were in rough chronological order, most recent to oldest.
She blew out a long breath. "I did. I wasn't going to, at first."
He took his time reading through the stack, aware that she was shifting in impatience in her chair as he did so. Finally he stopped reading and lifted an eyebrow at her, asking her to explain.
She was chewing on her bottom lip and her hands were tight fists, all signs of stress from her. Hard to say what she was most upset about. Being given the folder? The information in the folder? Being warned off of him by Morelli? The "something more" part?
"I decided to read through it because he's wrong," she said forcefully. "I know who you are. The man sitting in front of me." She waved her hand at the folder. "That's just a look at some of the things you've done." She rolled her eyes. "Or what Joe thought he might be able to pin on you, anyway."
The room was silent as he paged through more of the files. The work he did overseas for the agencies with no name, the ones that existed in little rooms in unmarked buildings in DC, funded way off the books, did not appear in the dossier. Morelli hadn't been able to tap into any of that.
Finally he looked up at her and shrugged. "Most of what is in here is true, as far as it goes," he said slowly. "A lot of things are guesswork on Morelli's part, not backed up by fact."
It was a more complete dossier than Morelli should have been able to put together from standard law enforcement sources - he must have some well-placed Federal sources, especially to get documents from the CIA and NSA - but it also contained a lot of conjecture. Morelli's instincts were pretty good and he'd read between the lines, the notes indicating that there was more to some of the cases than what was in the official documents and the guesses had been pretty close in a couple places, but wildly wrong in others.
He flipped to the back of the folder and read through the pages from the US Army records. It was a fairly sanitized version of his Army years, a dry recitation of active theaters and mission code names, rank promotions, postings to bases and commendations, honors and awards earned, without ever really explaining what the missions were or what he'd done as part of them. It also mentioned the polite fiction of his honorable discharge. There were long passages which were redacted but there were also mentions of Delta Force and JSOC in the clear and Joe had scribbled himself a note: "Black ops. Check Fort Bragg records." His lip turned up at the corner. Good luck with that, he thought.
He let out a long breath. Was he really going to do this? "A lot of this is classified." Apparently he was. "I can't share any information about the military records beyond what you've read here – and this is already more than you should have been able to see." This dossier would have to be deep-sixed, along with whatever backup copies Morelli had made and doubtless hidden. He'd have to arrange for that to happen, probably let the spooks handle it. Morelli was not going to enjoy that little surprise visit, but he'd brought it on himself.
"What you did in the military – black ops or otherwise – was done while you were a soldier." She sighed and twisted her hands. "I have no doubt that you've been involved in some horrible and terrifying things, but you were under orders."
He had to be honest, or as honest as he could be, about this. Not sharing info about his past was one thing, but lying was not an option with her. In his line of work, he lied as readily as he breathed. But not to her. Never to her. There was something almost freeing about that. "Don't use that to give me an out, Steph. The objectives were assigned, true, but the ops were under my command. The outcomes and collateral damage were my responsibility. Are my responsibility."
She let out a long breath. "But you survived. And became the man you are today."
"I'm not sure what you think you know about me, but I wasn't kidding when I said I needed to work on my karma, Stephanie. Yes, I survived, but other people didn't. There is blood on my hands. Enough to never come clean." Enough to stain anyone I touch, he thought.
He never wanted to share that part of his life, the things he'd done then and still continued to do, with anyone, but especially not with her. She looked up to him and she thought he was some kind of hero, not someone mired in death and blood. Someone with a long list of past debts and past enemies. If he could go back and change the past – or even the present – he would, for her. But that was impossible.
She'd been watching him carefully. "There is more than what is in this dossier, isn't there? And there are several years missing, between when you supposedly left the army and when you started going after federal fugitives and working with the agencies."
Morelli hadn't mentioned the gap in his notes but of course she'd caught it. "I was officially discharged from military service but I still do – call it contract work for them." He held up the folder. "None of that is in here."
"Officially discharged? What does that mean? Is that different from actually discharged?"
He knew he'd have to be careful how he phrased things with her; he wouldn't lie to her but sometimes she was very good at seeing right through his careful misdirection. He said nothing and she sighed.
"When you are in the wind, you are out on a contract job. Military or civilian?" Her palms were on the desk and she was leaning in, intent, looking for any evasion.
He paused before answering, weighing what he could and couldn't say. "There are several contracting agencies." And, in that admission, another rule broken for her. She could not know about all the agencies he did work for.
She sucked in a breath at his words. "A long time ago, you told me that you didn't do things that you thought were morally wrong. Has that always been true?"
He'd set that rule for himself years before he met her, trying to at least hold his own center in the middle of chaos and destruction. He hadn't always been able to hold fast to it. "You've always had a vision of me as some kind of hero, Babe. I'm not."
"You're wrong," she said softly, her blue eyes fixed on him. "You've always been my personal hero. Every time I've called you for help, you've come or sent someone for me. Even when I couldn't even call, you knew and you came for me. You've been shot for me. Jumped off of a bridge for me. Risked your life for me. You look out for me. Worry about me." She pointed at the dossier. "What is in there, it doesn't change any of that. Doesn't change the person I know now."
"You don't know me." He'd shown her probably the best of himself – she'd wanted a hero and he'd tried to give it to her. It had been a mistake, it led her to believe he was something he wasn't.
"I do. I know that when I call you, you come. When I ask for advice, you give it. When I ask for truth, you give it. When I ask for comfort, you give it." She waved her hand at his closed office door. "When I ask for your time, you rearrange your entire life for me."
They stared at each other across his desk. The silence stretched between them, heavy and uncomfortable. Finally, she reached out across the desk and flipped the folder closed. He opened his hands so that she could take back the folder if she wanted it. There were things in the folder that could be used against him and it would never leave this office, but if she wanted to read through it again, he'd let her.
Instead she slid the folder across his desk and over the side. The folder opened as it fell, spreading the paperwork on the floor. He looked down at the scattered pages, a cold summary of his adult life. She moved around the desk, perching on her favorite corner, one of her legs brushing his.
"Is this why you always push me away? Let me get so close and no closer? The reason you told me to go back to Morelli?"
Explaining himself to her was dangerous territory. The fastest way to get her to back off was to flirt with her. She ran from him every time. "I always want you very close to me, Babe."
She snorted. "Yes, exactly like that. This push-pull thing. Now I'm supposed to hop off of this desk and say 'oh, no, scary sexy Big Bad Ranger is getting too close to me!' and run." She leaned in and poked him in the chest with her finger. "That's not going to work right now. I'm tired of running, I'm tired of back-and-forth. I need to know what we have here. If we have something we can make work." She hesitated. "It feels like we could have something very good and I want it all straight out."
"Babe," he said, making his voice as flat as he could.
"Don't 'Babe' me, either." She waved at hand at the papers on the floor. "I've read through all that. Nothing in it changes my mind." She blew out a breath which stirred the hair that was starting to fall into her eyes. He wanted, very much, to reach forward to brush it out of her eyes, but didn't. "Yes, I admit it, you can be scary as fuck when you want to be. You have a dark side that you don't like to let me see. I know it's there. But it's not who you really are."
"You want me to be a hero. Your hero. I am not. You make me out to be something I am not, you trust me to be something I am not, and one of these days, the consequences..." He stopped. "I have never lied to you. I won't start now."
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then opened his eyes again. "I need you to listen to me very carefully. Not hear what you want to hear, but hear everything I am saying. I push you away because I am not a good choice for you. Not a smart choice for you. I don't want to see you hurt in any way and that is the most likely outcome of something between us."
"Then why do you pull me back in? Kiss me in the alley? Touch me? Hold me when-"
"Because I can't fucking stop myself when you are near me." He forced his hands, still on the tabletop, to unclench and lie flat. Calm. Controlled. He hadn't intended to share that particular truth with her. Revealing potentially damaging intel to the enemy was never a good move.
Her eyes widened at the movement of his hands and she stared at him. "Huh. Okay." He watched her work through her thoughts. "Who says you get to be the one who decides what a smart choice for me is?"
"You can't decide when you don't know the full truth, and you don't."
Her eyes were narrowed and her foot was swinging, brushing up against his leg. "The full truth," she mused. "The whole truth. That's not something you are good at, is it? That's not what this dossier represents." She tipped her head back and blew out a long breath and then met his eyes directly. "Okay, Ranger, here's the deal. My deal this time."
"Steph..."
She pointed a finger at him. "Give me the whole truth. You run a security firm that does commercial, corporate and residential security. You bring in high-dollar FTAs and Federal fugitives. You run jobs with various government agencies on the east coast. None of that adds up to someone with a life so dangerous that a personal life is not an option. I sat in on the meeting with the DEA last week: I know, for a fact, that Agent Ferrar, the biggest DEA badass on the east coast, is married and has 5 kids and lives in a subdivision in Princeton. So tell me: what do you really do?"
And with that, she cut completely through the misdirections and half-truths he'd fed her for years. Rangeman was his convenient cover that had somehow grown into a thriving business. "There are things I can't share..."
"I'm not talking about classified data or shit hidden behind the Secrets Act or some government seal. I don't need names or places. What do you really do?"
"I am capable of things you can't imagine. I work these jobs because I will do what it takes, whatever it takes, to get the job done. No matter what the cost. I am good at them, none better."
"Still not answering the question, Ranger. What are you when you are not in Trenton? An assassin? A spy? Military black ops?"
He leaned in and locked eyes with her. Nothing but the full truth was going to make her understand. "Whatever I have to be," he said.
She straightened up on the desk, her leg going still, all the breath going out of her at once. Then she blinked at him, considering him carefully. For once he had no idea what was going on in her head.
"Okay," she said, blowing out a long breath. "You tell me, straight out, why that means we can't have a relationship. Why we can't be together. And don't say that it's just because you have ugly things in your past or because you have enemies who might come after us. I know that. I've already seen it."
He closed his eyes and searched for the inner calm he needed. Usually he could summon it effortlessly, but right now it was eluding him. He opened his eyes and met her brilliant blue eyes, intent on his. "I can't offer you the life you deserve or the promises you deserve. I can't offer marriage or children or even a promise to come home to you every night. I get a call and I am gone on short notice. I can't tell you where I am going or when I'll be back. If I don't come back, you'll never know where my body is or what happened to me."
She nodded slowly. "Not knowing would be hard." She reached out a hand and brushed it across his cheek and her voice dropped. "Losing you would hurt. So much. But I wouldn't be the only woman in the world waiting for her man to come back from a dangerous job."
The breath seemed to stick in his throat. She meant it. He had no words for this.
She continued, "The promise I want from you is the promise to love me. Can you do that?"
That was easy. "I already do. Nothing can change that," he said softly.
"And promise that you'd always try to come back."
"You've been the thing keeping me coming home for a long time now, Babe."
Her eyes softened and she smiled at him."Can you turn these jobs down?"
"Some, but not all. I committed to a long-term contract and that can't be broken." At least not while he was still living.
Her leg started the restless back-and-forth swing again. "So you can commit to things. What would have to happen to get you to commit to me? I don't need the church wedding. But I want a life with you. As much of you as you can give me."
It was an involuntary reflex that had him lifting his hand to her knee, stilling her leg and running his hand back to cup her hip. "Are you sure that is what you really want?" It took all of his training to keep his voice and his heart rate level. This discussion was spinning out of his control.
"There have been a lot of things in my life that I haven't been sure about," she said, leaning forward to slide her hands up his chest to his shoulders. "For a long time I didn't know what I wanted or where I was going. I still might not have all the answers, but I have had time to think, and I know a couple things. I want there to be an us. I want that more than what you seem to think I want - the Burg life or any of the things that might go with it."
She leaned in to kiss him, her lips soft and gentle. He kissed her back, savoring her touch, but he knew they weren't done talking yet. He swung her around on the desk so that she straddled him.
"Again: are you sure that this – that I – am what you want?"
"I know that my life will have to change." She moved her hand up to touch the side of his face. "But I want this."
He shook his head slowly as the planning part of his brain kicked in to evaluate this new situation. In all the mental scenarios he had ever run that involved her, this – the possibility that she would come to him and freely, completely, offer herself to him – had never even been on the scenario list he'd created. For a moment, his head just spun, trying to get traction on the idea. Could it be done? What were the risks to her? To him? Parameters? Course of action? Logistics? Once he admitted to himself that the scenario was possible, the changes, adjustments and fixes came to him immediately. Apparently his brain had been processing this on a back loop for a long time.
She studied his face. "You're overthinking this, I can tell." She smiled at him.
He put his finger on her lips to stop the smile. "This is serious. A life with me comes with compromises – for both of us. Changes. Sacrifices. I need you to make the changes, to accept the necessity of them and live by them. If you can't, then I need you to walk away now, because I can't keep you safe enough. It's not fair to you because you are the one who has to give up so much."
The smile dropped off of her face and she tilted her head at him. "What changes, exactly?"
"I need you to live here with me, at Haywood, inside the levels of security here. To be a little more cautious with information around your family and friends. When you are out of the building, I need you to always be aware of your surroundings-"
"Hey," she said, interrupting him. "I pay attention."
"Babe, how many times yesterday did a Rangeman vehicle pace you?"
"I saw Hal at the TPD."
"No. Three times and you never saw them because you never looked up, you were too intent on what you were doing. If you want to continue to work at Vinnie's, I need you to accept a partner other than Lula. I'd prefer you work at Rangeman; there are many jobs here that would benefit from your unique point of view."
She snorted. "My unique point of view?"
"You have the strangest combination of blithe overconfidence and a lack of faith in your own strengths that I have ever seen. You're intuitive, smart but not always wise, you can pull out facts and details other people don't see, you're determined, stubborn, occasionally reckless-"
Her eyes narrowed, as she tried to decide whether to be angry or flattered. "Go on," she said, a certain amount of warning in her tone.
He changed his approach. "At certain times, during certain ops or situations, you will need bodyguards. There may come a time when I decide that Haywood isn't safe enough for you and you will need to be relocated. I need you to go without putting up a fight over it. If I can't know that you are safe, I can't be effective in the field."
"I'd rather be with you than hidden away somewhere. Don't shut me out, Ranger, it's one of the worst things you do to me."
He nodded to show her that he got her point. "I want you next to me, where I can keep my eyes on you, as often as you can be, but there will be times that can't work. Because if it gets out in the wrong places that you are mine, then you are the leverage to control my actions, to control me. And that would be bad, because I will do anything to keep you safe, no matter how legal or moral it is or isn't."
"And what about the changes you have to make? What is it going to be like for you to have me here, in your space, asking questions, poking around, disturbing your life?"
He finally let his lips curl up into the start of the smile. "That's the part I look forward to. Having you here? In my space. In my bed."
She snorted. "We'll see about that. And, you know, I haven't really asked if this is what you want.""
"I want," he said and pulled her into his lap so that she straddled him. His heart rate started to climb in anticipation.
She leaned forward and rested her forehead against his. "Do you-," she started tentatively. "Do you really think we can do this?"
"Babe." he whispered, cupping the back of her neck and pulling her up against him to kiss her. "We're going to do this and it's going to be very, very good."