He was getting there alright. A touch. A lean in. A bubble of panicked excitement made the corners of Noel's mouth twitch up into a smile that she was desperately trying to not let him see. But he was right there with his eyes on hers pinning her to the point of no escape.

Maybe she could help. She tried her best with timid lips touching his and hands that didn't know where to be. His shirt? His face? What was she supposed to do with her hands!?

Noel breathed an embarrassed laugh against his mouth, touching her nose briefly to his made her realize that she probably had salmon breath. Her hands now had a place. She brought them up to guard her lips just beneath wide and scandalized eyes. That jerk was making her self-conscious all over again.

So long as it wasn't a deep kiss— a tasting kiss— her power wouldn't kick in. She might die of embarrassment, but she wouldn't get trapped in his memories. Had he known? Maybe he knew. Or maybe she'd just been too scared to linger because she'd been the one to yank herself away.

"D-did it work?" She had to open her hands a bit to let the words out. For herself, she was certainly feeling warmer.

Ranger moved slow. His nose touching Noel’s before his lips found hers. It wasn’t a deep or passionate kiss. Just testing the waters. A small laugh against his lips. He pulled back letting his nose dance with hers as they breathed. It only managed to make Ranger want more. He moved again to kiss her, his other hand sliding up her leg to her side.

And Noel put her hands on her face. Hey eyes wide.

Following an unscheduled kiss to the hand, Ranger leaned away enough to have a better look at Noel’s face. His face was questioning. It demanded no answers, it was more a look of curiosity. She had stopped the kiss but had not spurned him.

“D-did it work?” Noel asked through gaps she had made in her finger face shield.

Ranger’s face turned to a small smile. ”Oh. It worked.” Any sense of cold had been driven away by the brief moment they had shared.

Leaning back a little more, Ranger lifted his hand from Noel’s side and slid his hand that rested on her hip halfway down her thigh. He took a moment to just drink in the moment before asking, "Not use t' kissin' because it's what y' want t' do, not y'r means t' gain intel?”

Her hand got a smooch. As it turned out, that was a very timely and warranted shield. One that saved her from melting away completely. Somehow she maintained her boundaries, but only just.

He was confused, but not mad. Maybe even... happy? She could have burst from her reflection of just that small pleasure. It worked. She had that effect on him. So it wasn't just the one-sided effect he had on her. That was... that was good.

The more the Ranger leaned away, the sillier it seemed to keep her guard up. She let her hands fall away, but couldn't help rolling her lips together. There was transfer there, she was sure she could have tasted him on her lips and delved into his mind without further contact.

Bad habits were hard to shake.

> "Not use t' kissin' because it's what y' want t' do, not y'r means t' gain intel?”

"It's... yeah." Lame, but it was so mortifying to put into words. She put her hand on top of his where it rested against her leg. Her leg was not-covered, but at least she had decided to put ON the underwear. Noel had nearly come out commando and this would have been a less cordial conversation. "Tt feels like I'm getting away with something."

More than walking away from the United States government— More than hot wiring a car— More than hiding in a cabin for the foreseeable future— a kiss just for the fun of it, with someone she trusted and liked? It was novel and exhilarating.

Noel kept one hand on his and put the other hand down onto the fireplace in the space between them so that she could lean toward him to make up half the distance.

"I'd do it again." A challenge.

With Ranger having pulled back from Noel’s face, Noel lowered her hands. Neither of them moved bodily away from the other. Noel swallowed her lips. Ranger interpreted this as Noel thinking or avoiding saying something.

“It’s… yeah.” Was Noel’s answer to his question. She put her hand on his and added, "It feels like I'm getting away with something."

That was a little bit of a surprise to Ranger. Kissing feeling like getting away with something? It immediately clicked why. Noel, due to her own power, likely never let herself get close to other people and certainly never kiss them. Ranger might have been a little saddened by the thought had he not been too exhilarated by the moment.

And maybe that was how he understood it. The thrill and excitement that he felt. It was like jumping out of an airplane or the first moments of a firefight. Exciting, frightening, electric. That first time stealing that very intimate moment with someone.

”Grand Theft Cardiac?” Ranger said. He said it as a joke with a strong vein of truth. He could see how the pair of them had come together in their past life and he was interested to experience it for himself.

Noel was the one to lean in the second time. She covered half the distance between them.

“I’d do it again”

Ranger lay his free hand across the one Noel had set between them. He didn’t rest any weight on that hand as he leaned forward to meet Noel, a mischievous grin on his face. ”Where I’m from twice makes it a tradition.”

Crossing the last couple inches, Ranger brushed his nose against Noel’s. Just a moment of teasing before he brought his lips to hers.

Her challenge was meritless in the face of the Ranger's mischief. All he had to do was grin that exact grin and her guts went to water. Noel had doubts. Noel had hella doubts. She would have found an escape had he not trapped her hand down first.

Oh sure, she had one of his hands, but that was to keep it in one place where she could keep an eye on it. Now he had her hand. She looked down at it and back up in time for a questioning nose tap. Was she in?

Oh hell. It wasn't like it hurt or anything...

His lips were soft, but his stubble just starting to make itself known. And lips too quickly moved into more lips, Noel abandoned his hand in favor of finding something of him to hold on to as her body moved on its own and her mind entered the vaults of the Ranger's mind.

She usually tried to go in with a plan. Without a plan, it was a strange transition. One moment getting warm, hot, and hotter; the next moment she was waking up... the sunlight made her squint and roll over. In bed next to her was a man. That scared her straight out of bed. Stiffly, she moved and she stopped at a mirror. Blonde. Short. She was beyond surprised at this point so the nudity wasn't even that upsetting.

What was most upsetting to realize was that this was a memory. Thus far her actions were so in tune with what Michael's had been, she'd thought it was really and truly happening to her.

Which meant her mind had wandered into a memory where Michael found himself inside someone else's body. Her own body would continue, guided not by her conscious mind but by whatever was left to it... which meant Noel should hurry.

She cranked the speed of the memory to fast forward, too curious to just abandon the storyline she'd wandered into. She zoomed through a car ride and a self-confrontation. That was a new one. And then...

And Noel booted herself forcefully out of the memory and did her best to go backwards or away. There wasn't a hell of a lot that was backwards except for not-Michael. She hadn't really thought that through, but she wasn't thinking very well anyway. She'd just accidentally experienced what it was like to have Michael as a woman... which meant Michael, as a woman, had had himself.

There were not enough colors in the rainbow for all the shades of embarrassment she had on display.

"I- I did not mean- I mean- oh my god."

They kissed. This time more than just a peck like kids sharing a first kiss. Noel’s hand found her way from his hand to his body as she moved. Ranger moved his now free hand around to Noel’s back. The kiss grew from just a peck on the lips to more. While it was satisfying it also stoked its own hunger.

The more he kissed Noel, the more he wanted to kiss Noel.

Ranger’s hands roamed as he kissed Noel, feeling her body. Were they not perched on the stone of the hearth Ranger would have laid her down. A natural progression from where they sat except there was nowhere soft to land and in one direction lay a fire, the other a short drop to the floor.

The back of Ranger’s mind chewed on the problem while he stayed in the moment... The moment where Noel aggressively broke from the kiss, her face a mess of colorful embarrassment.

"I- I did not mean- I mean- oh my god."

It took Ranger a moment to process. Noel’s abrupt end to the kiss and her sputtering. He was mid question when he realized what was happening, ”What’s the ma-”. Noel must have seen a memory and whatever it was, had embarrassed her like nothing he had yet seen. And he had seen Noel embarrassed.

A sinking feeling that he knew the answer, Ranger asked, ”...a memory?” Ranger likely had a few memories that might embarrass someone looking at them. He had one memory, one he had not thought about in years. A one time nightmare that he had just buried deep in the back.

She didn't want more. She absolutely wanted more. She'd had a taste of what could be. It was just that the circumstances had spoiled it.

Torn as she was, Noel settled for wrapping her arms around herself and pacing. She'd made it to her feet and pacing was doing something different than what she wanted to do. It was also different from what she thought she might do if left to her own devices.

"A memory." She confirmed. "Just... just let me work it out." She should probably be working it out with him, outloud. Noel stopped and looked at the Ranger. Nope. No way. She'd already taken a step toward him. That way lay danger.

So what was her problem exactly?

"I understand I'm not your first." That wasn't the problem, but it was important groundwork. "I saw... I experienced first hand..." For a second there, she thought she was going to get through it, but no.

Nope. Noel turned on her heel and went for the front door. Another free cold shower was in order.

Noel moved to stand, Ranger let her go. She set about pacing. Ranger let her have a moment to process.

“A memory. Just… let me work it out.”

Ranger sat on the hearth, and did as Noel asked. He raised his hands, showing his palms, to show compliance. She had lifted one of his memories and it had elicited a strong reaction. He had a few that could likely send Noel into a state of embarrassment so vivid. There had been a few times in his life where he had found the opportunity to be physically intimate.

Noel stopped and took a step toward him. Finally, she spoke again, "I understand I'm not your first."

Ranger was on the right track. Noel had lifted a sexual memory. What else would lead to the colorful response she’d had to it. It just left one question. There were only two people he had been with… Two completely different situations...

"I saw... I experienced first hand..."

Noel aborted the conversation. She turned and went for the door. Ranger rose to his feet. As uncomfortable as this conversation was, he needed to know what she saw. No… What she experienced. Awkward things breed awkward times and Ranger had a feeling that if this conversation was left unhad it would sour any future between them at best. Sometimes the military way was the best way forward.

Embrace the suck.

Ranger stepped faster than Noel and just before she could get to the door he caught her hand in his. ”Blonde or brunette woman?” Ranger asked quietly. Had she seen him as Lori or him with Lenna. No… Had she experienced him as Lori with himself or him with Lenna…

She was on a mission to get outside so when her hand darted out for the locks, and instead was caught in the Ranger's hand, it derailed her for long enough for him to get a question out. Blonde? Or Brunette. She looked at his hair which looked pretty brown, but the woman had been blonde... he'd been the woman. But it'd been this face looking at her the whole time. She didn't know how to answer the question as framed.

"It was you." The fact that there were two was good to know. She just had to avoid the brunette... unless she wanted to see the other side of things, too.

Her anger flared again and she pushed her hand through his grip to hit his chest.

"If I'd been prepared--" maybe it wouldn't have affected her so poorly. Would it be different? She swung again, a left cross this time. "If you hadn't been a woman at the time--" and if Noel weren't a woman, too. She tried to push him, knowing it would get her nowhere, but just needing to do something. If she didn't keep her anger stoked was was going to start crumbling about something so incredibly stupid. "If I didn't want that too-"

But it was too late. Hitting didn't help. Her next jab died before impact and her hand came to rest on his chest and she looked at it rather than Michael's face. The problem was she wanted it. She did. But... "I never... And then suddenly, it feels like I have, but it wasn't my choice. This was why I have rules." She'd gone in blind, broken all the rules, and now she was paying for it confusion and feelings and she didn't even have pants.

"Tell me something safe to look for." She was almost scared to look up at him which was exactly why she did. Being scared was stupid. "Next time."

It was only after Noel answered that Ranger realized he had poorly asked the question. It wasn’t like it mattered though. Noel answered, “It was you.” And Ranger knew exactly what she had experienced.

Ranger had pushed the memory to the back of his mind and left it there to just exist as something he could forget ever happened someday. Noel had dug it up and now the memory of the night broke into his consciousness like the Koolaid man. Busting down walls, smashing the furniture and demanding to be acknowledged as it delivered its contents.

Everything from the moment Lori in his body had taken control of the situation to when he woke up after, still in Lori’s body as she showered in his. The pain, the pleasure, the pleasure from pain. Being overwhelmed by the unfamiliar feelings of the body. It rushed back to the fore.

Noel’s hand made its way out of Ranger's hand and to his chest. He was not holding Noel with any real force, his goal was to stop her not hold her. The impact didn’t even stagger Ranger.

"If I'd been prepared--" She swung at Ranger again. Instinctively he flexed to take the hit. It rocked him when she made contact. Her momentum driving his shoulder back on that side. "If you hadn't been a woman at the time--" Noel pushed Ranger. His feet stayed firm but the push rocked him backward. Had he leaned into it, it likely would have not even done that much.

Ranger let her express herself violently. He could handle it and if it helped her it was worth any potential bruising.

"If I didn't want that too-" There was one last swing at Ranger, but it lost steam on the way. It left Noel’s hand resting on Ranger’s chest. Her eyes directed at it instead of Ranger’s.

Ranger’s eyebrows shot up. If she didn’t want that too… The meaning was evident. Ranger had a predictable physical response to the admission. He couldn’t deny that he didn’t want to have Noel in that way… Only with the roles the right way around.

"I never... And then suddenly, it feels like I have, but it wasn't my choice. This was why I have rules."

Ranger could understand where Noel was coming from. To some degree. He had been a semi-willing participant in the memory in question. While he had felt that he was not in control, the truth was he was to some degree. Noel had found herself in the memory having not asked for it. Her power had drug it up and she experienced it with no control in what happened.

"Tell me something safe to look for." Noel looked up at Ranger, his face looking serious for one of the few times since they had split from the agency and hopped an Amtrak. "Next time."

He had let her unload everything onto him. Words, punches, the works. He let her let everything out before he spoke. He put one of his hands atop Noel’s on his chest and said, ”I will.” while giving her hand a light squeeze. Full well meaning to do that.

He could apologize, but as they said in Delta, ‘Sorry is what you tell your girlfriend when you finish too quick.’ The word did nothing in itself. It was actions that mattered. What one did following an event warranting an apology.

”Look f’r… Family trips. San Jacinto, Big Bend, Telluride.” Ranger provided. They were all safe. Sightseeing, hiking, skiing. ”Or…” Ranger paused as he focused on a single memory, ”Alaska. I took a huntin’ trip up there a couple years back… Relatively speakin’.” No other people once he hit the wilderness. Days of being with his thoughts in the mountains looking for caribou. After bagging one packing it back to civilization. The only worry he had was would he wake up with a bear for a snuggle buddy. The memory was a fond one to Ranger. None of the high speed and noise of the city, just himself and nature.

Just as before, reason won over temper. Ranger didn't apologize, that would have been silly. The memories were his and the past was the past. A warning would have been nice, but she hadn't followed protocol. From now on she sure would. There wasn't any blame, just lessons learned.

He shared a few options. Noel discarded the family idea. Having feelings about other people's families was awkward. She couldn't imagine getting physical with Michael while watching his family go skiing. But the solo hunting trip... That idea had real merit.

"I wish the fireplace was in the bedroom." She grumbled because even moving this far away from the fire was chilly. The moment when she felt like she might overheat or be consumed was past and now she felt wrung out.

"Would you come be my heater? I don't really want to try the memory thing again tonight, but I make an okay big spoon?"

But before they could do that, protocol. Noel took Smell My Nuts with her to go find a Sharpie and some paper.

CHECK THE OVEN

She left the note for them in the morning when her pants would be dry, lest they forget and try to preheat the Ranger's pants. Tomorrow would be a new day, a pants day.

"Does anybody call you Michael?" She did in her notes. It still felt weird on her tongue, but she couldn't call him Hunter as she did at the wedding. That felt like a work thing. Blackforest was as convenient as sticking her hand in her mouth. So it had to be Michael, right?

“I wish the fireplace was in the bedroom.”

Ranger took the briefest of moments to consider if moving the bed was an option. THe furniture would all need moving. The bed would barely fit… THe bed is too big for the door and would need disassembly. He decided that another option could work better.

The one Noel suggested herself.

"Would you come be my heater? I don't really want to try the memory thing again tonight, but I make an okay big spoon?"

At the suggestion, Ranger let a small grin slip back onto his face. ”I can be y’r heater.” Ranger said. Noel didn’t want to try the memory thing again. Ranger interpreted that as meaning kissing. After what had just happened, he couldn’t blame her. ”I make a great little spoon.” Ones of satisfied customers.

Noel went off to write notes or something by Nuts light. Ranger locked the front door. The last thing their pantless party needed was an uninvited guest. Man or animal. A rolling gun battle across a cabin tended to be a mood killer.

“Does anybody call you Michael?”

”A lot of people... probably do.” Ranger said, thinking about it. Everyone at BlacTac either called him Hunter or Ranger. Military tendency to go by surnames or by callsign. Other people he had met while engaging in clandestine acts didn’t know his name unless they were read in. In that case they called him Ranger.

Michael was the name he was known by to the closest and the most distant to him. ”My family called me Michael ‘r Mikey. People I meet outside of work call me Michael.”

Noel had taken the one surviving candle to write her note. She could bring it to the bedroom. Ranger stepped into the room and it was like hitting a wall of cold. The heat from the fire had not done much to fight back the chill that far from the fireplace, but it had done less to warm the bedroom through its lone doorframe. Hell, the fire likely made the room even colder. Keep the bedroom cold so the people will keep it company. Or maybe it was ‘good guy fireplace’, chills the bedroom to bring people together.

Ranger did not have a question in the same vein to return with. He left the wedding without her last name, but the mountain of files, notes, and reports that Ranger had gone through on the train rides had used it a few times.

”What’s y’r favorite color?” Ranger asked as he took off his shirt. What he knew of Noel was largely more academic at that point and more of her future self at that.

Noel had pulled out the laptop to nowhere and tried to type out the day's events fast. She didn't plan on having any memory meltdowns, but protocol was her new best friend, her armor, and Noel tended to trust her past self (and now her “future” self) more than she trusted herself in the moment. It was important enough to take the time to get it done.

Ranger tossed out a question of his own that interrupted the flow of her fingers over the keyboard.

Did she have a favorite color? An image popped up unbidden so that must have been it.

”Yellow. Like sunflowers. You?” She added that to her notes too and saved and sealed the deal. The fire looked okay where it was. Probably no more cabin fires expected tonight. Noel blew out her candle and made her way by firelight into the dark and cold of the bedroom.

She hissed at the cold sheets stealing the warmth from her legs when she climbed in, and was surprised to find skin when she reached out toward the Ranger. Err. No. Toward Michael. She definitely kept her shirt on.

”Mikey makes you sound like a kid.” She was stuck on the name thing. ”Mike sounds like… like a mailman?”

A whole body shiver had her insisting with her hands that they find a way to snuggle close, spoon size promises be damned. She was a heat leech with fingers chilly from typing. Once they’d finally settled, Noel had her head on his pectoral with their legs a tangle and arms and chilly fingers tucked around.

She never could have imagined it. Her. In a bed. Like this.

They weren’t even married.

”Why stick together?” She realized that after she’d asked it, her thought plucked out of the internal dialogue in her head probably needed some context. ”I’m going back to SUPER. I don’t know if they’re in the right, but I don’t know what else to do. So when we leave here… if they’ll still have me, I’m going. But, when we walked out, I hadn’t decided. We could have gone our own ways. Why… didn’t we?” It was a question best asked in the dark. A bit of her insecurity showing, perhaps, since they hadn’t discussed it at all. They’d just acted together as a unit. Why? Because some paper said they had before?

They’d been partners for a long time. Noel didn’t have a lot of long term in her memory.

Was it bad to want some? Was it really possible? It seemed to work for a while according to her notes and then… whatever happened had happened.

Noel called out her answer, ”Yellow. Like sunflowers. You?”

”Blue. Rainy days or sunshine?” Ranger called back, pulling back the covers and sliding into the ice chest that was the bed. He sucked in a breath in response to the cold and started wiggling around between the sheets. Warm up the bed with motion.

"Sunshine." Noel called back. She sounded distracted by what she was working on. Ranger guessed it was her notes. There was a slight blueness in the light of the main room that he could see. A computer monitor would produce that harsh hue. A few moments later that light went away returning the room to the dim, warm light of the fire.

It wasn’t long before Ranger saw Noel enter the room through the distant light of the fire. It was just enough light visible through the open doorway to keep his vision normal but not enough to see anything in the room. She climbed into the bed and brushed against him. She was still wearing clothes.

”Mikey makes you sound like a kid. Mike sounds like… like a mailman?”

Ranger chuckled. ”I guess it d-OES. Cold hands!” Noel fingers were icicles working to bodily arrange Ranger into an optimal heat transfer snuggle. Her head on his chest and arms wrapped around him. Ranger wrapped his arms around her, maximizing the surface area she could rob heat from him. Their legs were a tangled mess.

It was an end to the day that exceeded any expectation Ranger had going into the day. In bed with a beautiful woman wrapped around him.

Noel broke in with the big questions. Why did they stick together, why when they could have gone their separate ways didn’t they? It was a good question. At the time they didn’t know as much as they knew now about their history together. They hadn’t yet shared a moment like they had that evening. They had worked security at a wedding, danced, and woken up in a government facility with a file saying they had worked together.

The question felt serious and Ranger treated it as such. ”Maybe… A sense of camaraderie along with us bein’ the only people we knew t’ maybe be on our side?” Ranger answered but he wasn’t sure and questioned it. ”I have no problem workin’ f’r the government, but I wanted t’ do it on my terms not just because they said I did.” But why when he slipped their net did he take Noel with him? The night he met Noel he felt there could have been a connection. He was getting ready to go overseas and let it drop. ”Maybe… I trusted in Sideshow and what he brought us...” He wouldn’t have packed the racy underwear if there wasn’t something between Noel and Ranger. The man often left Ranger thinking he was the king of heathens, but he was good at reading people and understanding when something was too much. ”Maybe... I just wanted a second adventure with y’.”