This is for Margaret and Mm Ranger yum, and it's not a Morelli-friendly story. All familiar characters and events belong to Janet. The mistakes are mine alone.

Chapter 2

Joe's POV

I know where I am, but I have no fucking idea what just happened to it. I came into the dirty little dive bar with a warrant for the arrest of the owner, who had been stupid enough to kill his own waitress when she refused a date with him. Her two-letter refusal got her one small-caliber bullet to the back of her head.

According to details a witness finally copped to, the victim had flung the boss' arm off her in a fit of disgust, not rage, and was about to storm away. She didn't make it far, and I thought neither would the owner once his ass made it back to the station. A reliable witness, a ballistics match, and a shaky alibi, equals decades - if not a lifetime - of prison food.

I had my weapon drawn long before I saw him about to pull one on me, but I'd been too cocky coming here, thinking I didn't need backup for this particular arrest. I had no one watching my back when the asshole owner's brother entered the picture.

I heard two shots. When I opened my eyes again ... I was still in the bar, but it looked like nothing had happened. It even appeared as if the place had been cleaned up and closed down for the night while I'd still been out of it. If a fucking tumbleweed blew by, I wouldn't have been surprised. There were no bodies sprawled on the floor even though I know my shot was a fatal one, maybe in more ways than one.

I found myself sitting in what I hope is only a vomit-stained booth situated towards the back of the place. There's a sixty-five-inch HDTV hanging on the wall directly across from me, a glass by my left hand filled with something I've craved, but wouldn't allow myself to drink, and not a fucking soul to be seen.

There aren't any cops or crime scene tape, no bar regulars, and no sign of the suspect I'd been in the process of arresting. I looked across the barroom to where I remembered standing, and just for a split second, I saw myself lying on the sawdust-covered floor with too much blood coming out from underneath me.

I didn't have time to analyze that or to question what happened to me, the TV flickered and then came to life without help from me or from anyone else as far as I can tell.

"Fucking freaky," I said to myself.

That wasn't where the freakiness ended, either. Nothing except a wall of flames showed on the flat-screen I would've killed for on game day. After about thirty nerve-wracking seconds, I saw something that had my gut twisting for multiple reasons. Taking up the entire screen was my parents' garage just as I remembered it as a kid. Stephanie was standing inside it as a six-year-old girl, wearing a little ruffled pink skirt and a curious expression.

I don't need to see anymore to know that I'm now part of a "This is your life, Morelli" skit that, considering my past, doesn't bode well for me. My shirt suddenly felt hot and too wet to be soaked with just my nervous sweat. I looked down and saw that blood had colored my once white t-shirt bright red. And now there's a hole in my chest where flesh should be.

"What the fuck?" I said out loud.

The blood reabsorbed, my shirt was back to being white, and the bullet hole closed up just as the image on the TV changed. She was sixteen this time, standing behind the counter at Tasty Pastry, and I knew what was coming. I'd taken her virginity and had taken off minutes later. I also left town not long after, but not before I told everyone what she was like and what she'd let me do to her.

I suppose it was a douchey thing to do, but that broken leg had been well worth it. I smiled to myself. Bastard or not ... I made sure she never forgot me in the years between that leg-break and the warrant issued for my arrest. I remained front and center in her mind until he came sniffing around her.

I chugged half of the whiskey, which had somehow landed in my hand, as scene after scene of my relationship with Stephanie Plum played out. Next was me handcuffing her to her shower. At the time, she'd been in the shower and completely naked, but this flashback had her fully dressed in a Rangeman uniform, no doubt to serve as a reminder that he'd been the one she called to rescue her. Again. I was royally pissed at her at the time and hadn't been thinking clearly, if I had ... I would've tried for a bakery repeat.

That thought caused the screen to go back to flames, and I tried to clear my mind so the temperature in the room would go back to being bearable. The heat was turned down in the 'bar', but it remained on me as the image of me physically attacking Stephanie played on.

"That one was all her," I said to my drink.

The door on that refrigerator truck opened at the police station and I'd lunged out of it at her. It's completely justifiable since she had tricked me into it, used it to kidnap me and then transport me to the same station that let me keep my badge when the dust settled. I made sure she earned that particular bounty. I raised a glass to myself. I don't know if God or the devil himself is listening, but I didn't care either way.

"You would've considered strangling her too if she locked you in a freezing cold vehicle with a couple of dead bodies for company."

I jumped and glanced down at my legs. I could've sworn the booth just shot a few volts into me.

"Sorry," I said like an idiot, but being an electrical conductor didn't feel particularly good, even when there's a good chance you're actually dead and shouldn't be feeling anything.

I saw flames again before the picture changed ... this one was when I got in Stephanie's face at a crime scene, likely after a shooting or another car bomb meant for her. She wasn't just a trouble magnet, she was like a black hole where everything problematic gets sucked.

I gestured towards the screen. "Come on, I was just angry at her for almost getting herself killed. There's no reason that should be included in all this."

Another fucking shock.

"Damn it. That fucking hurts!"

"Bet it hurt her, too, every time you criticized her job performance, called her stupid or crazy, disrespected her as a person overall ..."

Those words didn't come from a voice exactly, more a thought in my head that wasn't my own.

"I didn't hurt her," I tried to explain, and I got a double-shock for my efforts. "My getting on her case kept her alive when she would've gotten herself killed."

"She kept herself alive. And while doing so, she also solved a few crimes that a certain 'experienced' homicide detective couldn't. This is for lying about her achievements."

A flash of pain hit me in the chest right where the bullet hole had appeared minutes ago.

"I'm not lying. If she would've married me when I first suggested it, kept herself at home with the kids I wanted to have with her, she wouldn't have had to suffer in all the ways she did."

Various pictures of my family ... my mother, Grandma Bella, cousin Kenny, my father's obituary, Godfather Sunny, my horndog brother Anthony, Great-Aunt Mary Elizabeth, and Uncle Mario, were tossed out like someone was dealing a round of poker.

"You don't think Stephanie would have suffered at the hands - or the legacy - of your family? That was a rhetorical question, since you and I are well aware that she would have ... and you wouldn't have stopped it."

I shrugged. "Blood's blood."

She would've found a way of surviving them like I had to.

"Blood isn't just blood when it's known for being poisonous."

Replays of a childhood spent enduring my father, all the crimes Kenny has committed ... including the ones involving Stephanie, even a list of people Bella has threatened to, or already has, put 'the eye' on, were given air time.

"Yeah, well, Stephanie's family isn't perfect," I pointed out. "And neither is she by the way."

"So why have you all but stalked her if she created such turmoil in your life?"

Good question, but I'm not getting my ass shocked again by answering it. I took a much needed gulp of whiskey, but it turned completely rancid in my mouth just before I swallowed it down.

"You know, you'd be a real hit at parties," I said to whatever the hell is fucking with me.

I put both elbows on the table and continued to watch what an asshole I'm supposed to admit to being. Sure ... hiding Steph's cheating ex at my house and letting her believe she was going to get arrested for his murder wasn't good boyfriend behavior, but I had a job to do. A job that didn't include her knowing that particular information.

"You used her as bait a few times also ..." the non-voice said. "Ramirez and Petiak come to mind. You seem to be omitting those incidents from your list of memories involving her."

"I did shoot up that gym to save Stephanie from Ramirez," I pointed out.

"You also put your hands on her and humiliated her, in yet another garage, just after 'saving' her."

"As I said, no one's perfect."

"This is true, but some learn from their mistakes while others enjoy repeating them. You would be one of those who repeats. Stephanie, however, made a solemn vow never to repeat hers ...

This new TV scene I know is a recent one, because he's there with her. They're both in a hospital room and he was bent over her bed, talking to her with his lips disgustingly close to hers. I felt sick again. Out of everything I could be forced to watch, this is the worst ... the hardest.

Stephanie suddenly sat up in the bed and gripped Manoso's hand hard in both of hers as a contraction hit.

"You can stop now," I told whoever's in charge of the picture show. "I don't want to see anymore."

"She's a far better person than you turned out to be. She didn't refuse to see you even after you slept with her and then promptly told her you wanted out of the relationship. It's clear you still have much to learn."

Steph smiled weakly at Manoso and then her beautiful face contorted in pain again.

"I get it. I fucked up. Turn off the goddamned TV!" I shouted.

"Now you know exactly how I feel," I heard from behind me.

That martyred voice has haunted me long after Steph said goodbye to both of us.

"What are you doing here, Mrs. Plum?" I asked, grateful to have something to look at other than what a happy life Stephanie has without me.

Helen glanced at what was playing on the screen and sniffed. Hard to tell if it was emotion or disdain that caused the sound.

"Isn't it obvious? According to the forces beyond my control, I was a horrible, wretched mother to that one," she pointed to where Ranger was holding a cup of water to Stephanie's lips, "and this is my punishment. Not only do I have to watch everyone live their lives from here, I have to listen over and over again to everything negative I've ever said to them. Your actions must have been far worse than your actual words, because your sound is turned off whereas my 'lectures' increase in volume every hour on the hour."

"Uhh, I don't mean to sound rude," I said to the woman who was supposed to have been my mother-in-law, "but aren't you dead?"

"Yes ... as a doornail. Why may I ask weren't you at my funeral? After all the support I gave you and all of those times I pressured Stephanie to work things out with you, I deserved that small courtesy at least."

I shrugged. "I had to work."

Her pinched face and narrowed lips made it clear that, like her daughter, work wasn't a good enough reason to bail on important dates.

"Anyway," she began, "I believe you are also deceased if you're here."

"Here is ... where exactly?"

"Honestly, Joseph, I'd think with you being a detective, you would be able to put the clues together much faster. This is our own little corner of Hell."

She slid into the booth beside me and I noticed that my glass had been magically refilled. A glass had appeared in front of her as if she'd pulled it out of her sleeve when I wasn't looking. She reached for it without even needing to take her eyes off the TV.

"We're both dead?" I asked, just so I was clear on what's going on.

"Yes. And it seems we're to face what 'monsters' we both were while alive."

My eyes strayed to Stephanie again. She's in the final stages of labor, looks completely exhausted, is married to a man who isn't me, and I'm supposedly dead ... but still I want her with me in a way that had my chest hurting worse than when the bullet tore through it. In my mind, she's always been mine and it looks like I'm doomed to think that in death as well.

"She's having my grandson right now and I'm stuck here," Helen complained in a tone bordering on whiny.

"You won't get much sympathy from me. Your daughter belonged to ... I mean with ... me. And I made sure she knew my feelings on that. I told her she was going to be my wife. She was never supposed to mean anything to that bastard. That should be my son she's having right now. That asshole always wins ..."

"Don't you dare use that tone or those words with me, Joseph Anthony Morelli. I don't like this situation any better than you do. Had you married her as soon as you realized that man was interested in her, neither of us would be here. This is all your fault."

"This is just as much your fault as you claim it's mine," I told her. "You were supposed to convince Stephanie to come back to the Burg, not harp on her so much she decided to move far away from it with him."

I don't know how, but I swear Manoso knew we were watching, because just as Steph's shoulders came off the bed again, he moved so our view was blocked by his body. A few minutes later, we heard a single cry from the baby and an exhausted but content sigh coming from Stephanie, but the solid wall Manoso's back presented was all we were allowed to see. The screen went back to flames right after.

Helen knocked back her booze and I followed suit. Why the hell shouldn't I? That fucking bastard secured himself my chunk of heaven and I'm now trapped in the hell I helped Helen create.