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Title: "Happy Valentine's Day"
Author: Pirate Turner
Dedicated To: My most purrfectly wondrous and infinitely beloved, my Muse, my Captain, my husband, my love, Jack -- I love you, sweetheart; happy Valentine's Day, my King!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rating: G
Summary: Gage has a valentine for Sydney this year that will take her by complete surprise!
Warnings: Het
Word Count: 1,876
Date Written: 12 February, 2011
Disclaimer: Francis Gage, Sydney Cooke, and Walker, Texas Ranger are © & TM their respective owners, none of whom are the author; are used without permission; and may not be used without permission. Everything else is © & TM the author. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Sydney continued to glance up at Gage every few minutes as they worked on their paperwork. Valentine's Day was slowly coming to a close, and he had not made a single advance on her all day long! This was not the Gage to which she was accustomed, and Syd continued to expect huge balloons, a militia of flowers, somewhat pathetic come-on lines, or even a parade blasting at her that he loved her at any given second. Still time ticked on by, and he remained suspiciously silent.

He raised his head, suddenly, while she had been staring at him in suspicion, and his eyes met hers. He smiled gently at her. "What?" he asked. "Do I have something in my teeth?" He widened his smile, revealing his perfect, white teeth to her, and Syd quickly shook her head and returned her attention to her paperwork.

She knew he was up to something, and she knew she had to be ready. It was becoming continuously harder to rebuff her beloved partner's advances, but yet she knew she had no other choice for failure to do so even once would destroy everything she held dear. She had slipped up once before and kissed him, and they had been lucky to have recovered as well as they had from that embrace.

They could not be together. They could not admit to, let alone face, the feelings that bubbled non-stop within their hearts and souls for each other. Sydney knew, from past experience, that it would never work out. None of her relationships with guys ever did, and she could not bare the thought of her best friend joining the long list of previous beaus to whom she no longer even spoke.

Gage was not only the love of Sydney's life. He was also the light in her world, the source of her strength when all else fell apart and she just wanted to break down and cry, and the only thing that kept her going still when she was ready to just throw in the towel and be done with all the aspects of her life. He was her shining star, her rainbow of light in the dark world they shared, and her hero, but she could never tell him any of this. She could never tell him the strength, warmth, and courage his smiles gave to her; how she looked forward to seeing his handsome, jovial face every morning; or how it was the fear that some one would shoot him when her back was turned that always kept her fighting with everything she possessed. She could never dare to admit to him how she burned inside for more every time he touched her, even if it was just his hand brushing against hers; how she longed, with everything she was, to stay inside the warm, safe, and loving confines of his arms whenever he hugged her; or how infinitely much he truly meant to her.

She could never tell him all of the secrets she had left, those few he hadn't heard, those that would explain her fear of becoming involved to him lest he find a way to sweep away those fears or the only other secrets she still kept guarded from him, the way she truly felt about him and how desperately much she loved and needed him in her life. Sydney loved Gage with all of her heart, soul, and very being. She loved him more than she'd ever loved any one else before in all her life, and more than she'd ever thought was possible to really love somebody, but yet she needed him even more.

Without Gage in her life, Sydney's world would be despairing, dark, achingly lonely, and simply no longer worth surviving. Gage was everything good in her world, and she could not risk losing him. As much as she hated it, the only way to keep their friendship safe, the only way to make certain that he stayed in her life and kept loving her, even if they never gave a voice to their true love, was to never once be stupid enough to open herself up and admit, even if but for a second, how grandly she really loved him.

Tears were welling in Sydney's eyes as she kept her face down, lest he should glance over and see her despairing thoughts shining through with her betraying emotions, when her pen stopped writing. She scribbled and scratched. She pressed so hard that she bore a hole into her report, and still the ink did not return. Frustrated, she lost control for a glimmer of a second and threw the pen against her desk.

Gage looked up with a knowing smile. He stood, stretched, and picked up his coffee cup. "I'm going to get some more coffee. You want some?"

"Sure," Syd mumbled and did not dare to look up even as he approached her desk. She waited until he had left her side, taking her mug with him, before running shaking fingers through her long, dark hair.

Why couldn't he just make his move and be done with it?! she stormed silently. He'd probably gone to get whatever he was going to hit her with this year now, but whatever it was, she'd be ready. Whatever he did, she'd keep them safe. She would protect their friendship and their relationship, just as it was, to her dying breath, just as she would readily lay down her life to save his at any second.

In the mean time, before he returned, she had to get a grip on her own self and her shaken emotions. She ran her hands over her face, taking several, deep breaths meant to be calming, dried her unshed tears from her moistened, brown eyes, and then opened her desk drawer to retrieve a fresh pen.

Sydney froze. Her troubled, suddenly frightened eyes stared down at the big, red heart looking back up at her. So this, she realized, was his move. She'd open the card, read some verse, and then he'd strike her from behind with whatever big gestures he was going to make. She shouldn't open it, but yet he'd not even given her the convenience of an envelope to keep from opening and his words already peeked up at her.

Written above the lines from the manufacturer, in Gage's scribbled handwriting, was a simple plea, part of which she heard every day. "Please give me a chance, Syd," he had written. But then it changed. "Just open me," he had added. "I promise you won't be disappointed, and it won't change anything."

It was the last four words, the unflourished promise, that demanded Sydney's attention more than anything else on the card. She ran a hand over her cheek, lips, and chin, still trying to calm her shaking nerves, as she stared at it. Opening the card would not change anything. What had he said inside the card, or perhaps left, that could be a valentine that he hoped for her to accept and yet would not change anything between them?

It wasn't possible, she thought, for them to admit to their feelings and their friendship stay the same. If they ever admitted to the love that filled their hearts every second of every day and night, they might be able to be together romantically for a while, but then he'd leave her, too, just like every guy she'd ever cared for before, including her own father, had done. He'd leave her. She'd be alone again, but yet Francis Gage was the one guy in all the world from whom she would never recover.

Still, he promised that it wouldn't change anything, and he had not yet returned. She could take a quick peek, see what he had said or done that he was convinced would not change a thing between them, and hide away the card before he came back into the office, and he would never know she had opened it. He would never know, she vowed, and so she opened the card.

Her gaze darted across his writing. Her mouth opened when she began to read what he had written. Her eyes filled with glimmering tears. Her soul shouted for joy, and her heart soared far beyond the heavens. It couldn't be! Francis Gage would never be so understanding!

But yet, there in plain, black pen on white paper, he had written the words he would have told her if only she'd stopped fighting his playful advances long enough to listen. "I understand," he had vowed, "and I'm sorry about whatever's made you so scared, but I can't give up loving you. I'll always love you, Syd, and I'll always try to get you to admit that you love me too as I know you do! Even if you never say so, I'll still be here waiting and loving you! Nothing could ever get me to leave you alone, but I'll always understand and never push too hard."

"When you're ready, if I ever get that lucky, I'll be here waiting, hoping with all my heart that I'll one day get to be your valentine, and if ever that day comes, I'll never make you regret it! No matter what, I love you forever! Now shut the card and put it away before I come back in the room, love, and we can pretend that this, too, never happened."

She shut the card with trembling hands, laid it back down in the exact position from whence she had lifted it, grabbed her pen as she heard his footsteps beginning to return, and quickly shut her desk. Still shaking inside, she forced herself to return to her paperwork and struggled to keep from looking up as she heard him approaching her desk. "Here you go, Syd," Gage spoke quietly and thrust her coffee cup at her. "Sorry it took so long. Somebody let the pot run out, so I had to make us fresh."

"Mmm," she muttered, determined not to let on that she had read his card and her heart had finally heard his most honest message. "It smells good." She dared to lift her face to him, but when she did so, her smile was in tact and her tears were forcibly gone.

He handed her her coffee cup, and for a breath-taking second that made both their hearts soar together through the cosmos, their fingers touched as Sydney clasped her cup. They gazed into each other's eyes, both having so much that they wanted to say but neither, for this Valentine's Day, daring to voice any of the words and feelings that cried to be set free inside their hearts and souls. Gage smiled and forced himself to let go of Syd's cup and give her this holiday of love without worry or fear. "Happy Valentine's Day, Syd," he spoke, smiling, and headed back to his desk.

Sydney stared after him in amazed shock, immense gratitude, and never-ending love. Just as quietly, she answered, hoping that he'd hear the underlining "thank you" and "I love you" to which she dared not give a voice. He heard and smiled warmly at her as he sat back down across the way. "Happy Valentine's Day, Gage."

The End