All familiar characters belong to Janet. The mistakes are mine. I wanted to say a quick thank you to readers for continuing to read and review/Guest review my stories ... and for the added encouragement to continue this one.

Chapter 2

Ranger's POV

I could feel Stephanie before I saw her. Like I had before, I asked Tank to accompany her to meet me, but there's a reason beyond secrecy for the request. I felt more comfortable with there being an extra set of hands, that are also capable of providing security, for Stephanie.

"Welcome home. God, I've missed you," she said to me, before giving me a one-armed hug and a kiss that held none of her feelings back. "Some of us have been waiting their whole life for this moment. See? The shirt even says so."

Aside from scanning my wife from head to toe and then kissing her like I've been missing her, my eyes never left the little bundle wiggling in her arms.

I still can't believe it. Right here in front of me is my now six-day-old daughter.

Being a virtual Lamaze coach is NOT the same thing as being there for my second daughter's delivery. Nor is only being able to talk Stephanie through it acceptable when I knew she wasn't going to ask anyone to be in the room with her.

"I don't want anyone but us to be there," she had repeatedly told me from the moment Lamaze talk began. "I know what I'm saying. If you can't there, I can and I will get myself breathing correctly and keep my pain at a minimum... and then I'll share all the gory details with you." Nothing I said changed her mind, not even when I had to leave again for what should've been a quick job far too close to her due date. "Ranger," I was told with forced patience, "you and I were the only ones there when we made her, and we're going to be the only ones there - aside from the doctor and nurses who are required - when she comes out. I promise, I'll be fine."

I couldn't convince her otherwise, even with telling her that I believe Mary Lou or Valerie would be helpful to her. After Tank pulled a few strings and used some mutual contacts to get word to me that Stephanie had gone into labor, I worked fast so I could be in the room with her the only way I could, being halfway across the globe. I got to see the doctor lift up a perfectly formed mini-Stephanie, all ten fingers and toes accounted for. I heard my daughter's first cry as she protested the birth and likely the disturbance, and I was lucky enough to watch the cord being cut and then Ava being placed in Steph's arms as our daughter got an initial rubdown that I felt was a little too aggressive considering what my baby had just gone through.

I couldn't be there, but instead of dwelling in that disappointment and frustration, I focused on something I did have control over. I completed my mission and got myself home as quickly as I could manage it to meet my flesh in the flesh. Like last time, Tank swore six ways to Sunday that Steph, and now our daughter, would be standing there when I landed in the states again. I just had to stay safe and get myself back to them.

"Let me introduce you to your Bat Baby Girl, Ava Corrine Manoso," Steph said quietly to me, knowing how surreal this felt, considering that the last time I returned home, I'd learned that she was only a few weeks pregnant, discussing boy and girl names that very night. Now I finally get to see, touch, and hold, the tiny person we've spent months awaiting. "Ava, meet the best daddy a girl can have. You can ask your big sister Julie when she comes to visit you, and she'll agree."

Steph wasn't kidding about Ava's clothes. She had dressed our daughter in a long-sleeve pink shirt that read 'Welcome home Daddy! I've been waiting my whole life to meet you' that had an absurd tutu sewn into the hem of it. My baby was also subjected to a pink hair bow attached to a headband that was slid over the wispy strands of dark hair. Her legs remained in constant motion even under her blanket, and they had white leggings covered in matching-pink hearts threaded onto them. Steph had put tiny socks on her feet, but they and her legs are still so small, the white socks with bows similar to the one on her beautiful little head, are already half-off.

That Stephanie, a woman who typically despises pink, put this on our daughter without a gun barrel being pressed into her head, was a clear message for me. No matter the horrors I've just seen and unfortunately had to participate in, innocence still exists in the world ... and here is my, our, seven pound part of it.

I curled my hands under the slight weight of our baby, my fingertips able to touch each other across her back, and I took her out of Stephanie's arms and held her in mine. I lifted her up as I lowered my head, burying my face in the curve where her neck meets her shoulder, absorbing every ounce of her energy, vulnerability, and that unmistakable baby scent that could single-handedly keep the human race free from extinction.

I was also beating back grateful tears. My whole journey home, I told myself that I earned my right to still be alive ... if only to be the husband Stephanie deserves and the father my daughters need. But being able to hold Ava, while her mother is holding me, is the exact moment I started to believe it. No one can love and protect the three of them like I can.

"Just give me a minute," I told Steph and Tank.

They remained quiet, but my wife's arms had stayed around my waist and she'd rested her chin on my forearm so she could be part of this family reunion.

Ava's big brown eyes locked on various parts of my face, trying to bring it and me into her still-fuzzy focus, and I couldn't pull mine away from her. "She's beautiful," I said, after two solid minutes of absolute peace.

"She is," Steph said. "Can you believe we made her?"

"Yes," Tank answered her, and then said to me ... "She's only been here for a few days, and already Ava can make men cry as easily as you can, and she's got lungs like her Mama when she's upset or hungry. Oww."

"You'll get more than a poke in the ribs if you continue to pick on me," Steph warned him. "You may not want to forget that I am married to an extremely protective Army Ranger."

"You're friends with one too," he told her, giving her shoulders a quick brotherly squeeze.

"I'm glad you're finally willing to admit that out loud," she said to him, before glancing back at me. "Uh-oh ... looks like I've got some competition."

"My eyes are on our daughter, Babe, but every cell in my body is tuned to you," I informed her.

"I don't blame you for not being able to look away. I've spent every night since we got out of the hospital, sitting wide awake on our bed, just staring at her when she decided to actually sleep in the bassinet I've since slid over to the bed to sit right next to me."

"Something tells me that's going to change," Tank told her.

"Of course it is," she replied. "I got my guy back. Now I get to see how well or how badly I divide my time. But since her Daddy's here to help with diaper duty and baby-burping, that'll add a good hour to my day that I can now spend glued to him instead of Ava."

Tank tried to suppress a grin as he spoke to me. "Looks like you left shit behind just to step back in it."

"You did not just say that in reference to our daughter, did you?" Steph asked, with one eyebrow up in a threatening Mama Bear manner.

"You're the one who mentioned diapers. I was just expanding on your comment."

"Should Ava and I leave you two alone to fight this out?" I asked them.

"Nope," Steph immediately said. "I've had too much time with him as it is. I'm ready for a change of scenery ... though the last one I do love."

"So you say now."

"And will stand by always. You're not my Batman, but you could fill Superman's tights."

The face Tank made hearing that will forever remain in my mind, right next to the image I'll always remember of Ava's face when I kissed my daughter for the first time. Hers is one I'll keep out of love and adoration, his will be solely for ball-busting purposes.

"Never say that again," he ordered my wife.

Being my wife, she replied ... "I won't ... until we get home and have an audience."

I shifted Ava so I could keep my eyes on her face and wildly waving arms and legs, while also looking my fill of my wife. Steph told me during a brief call three days ago that she still looks pregnant, but I only see the woman I feel I'm becoming even more obsessed with.

"Audience?" I asked her.

She stopped teasing Tank as a way of giving Ava and I some time together, and her gaze and full attention turned to us again.

"Sorry ... I know you hate being the center of attention, but Ava and I haven't left the Rangeman building except for her well-check appointment with the doctor. Everyone seems okay with coming to visit us there. The guys, all being trained by you, figured with no appointments scheduled for today ... the only reason we'd be packed up and heading out, would be to bring you home. I'm guessing they'll all be hanging around the lobby, trying to appear like it suddenly needs twenty men guarding it. I thought having a baby to take care of would make me more neurotic, but it's turned the guys into closet worrywarts, though they're still trying to pretend like they're not. Even I could tell they were relieved that you're back safe and sound."

Ava coughed and three sets of eyes flew to her. I moved her to my shoulder ... blanket, readjusted socks and all, and did what I had with my oldest to soothe her more than a decade ago.

"You haven't lost your touch," Steph noted. "Hopefully that also extends to car seats. We didn't need one of those last time we picked you up. I thought Mary Lou was full of it, but the time really does fly when you have kids."

"I hated to miss even a second of it," I admitted.

"I know ... which is why I tried to document, take pictures of, and make videos of, everything that has happened in the last week. The footage of her visit to the doctors is blockbuster material. I should warn you, Ava and I have had many conversations about you."

"That does sound dangerous," I said, feeling anything but as I kissed my daughter's baby-soft temple.

"It really wasn't. I can say that Aves here loves her Daddy as much as I do."

"Steph ain't lying," Tank told me. "I've heard your ladies myself. She gets almost nose-to-nose with Ava and talks ... and talks, while your baby looks like she's trying to memorize Steph's face like you do and keep straight the stories her mom is telling her about you. You've got some big boots to fill."

"Correction," Steph said, turning to me, "you've already filled them to capacity. I was just explaining to our daughter all the ways you've done it. And now I get your boots back under our bed."

A six-week sex-fast, now down to five, rather than a day or two sex-fest changes our usual homecoming, but just being back with my family and getting to know my daughter is enough.

"I'm looking forward to being home."

"You may change your mind," she told me, one hand stroking our daughter's hair and the fingers of her free one finding their way into the short ends of mine. "Your daughter takes after you in the sleep department ... as in she doesn't need a lot of it at night. Looks can be deceiving ... I was trying to trick you into thinking I look good, but I literally spackled on concealer right before leaving our apartment so I wouldn't scare you back onto the plane."

"That would never happen, Babe. I wouldn't purposely choose to leave you ... or our baby."

"I can see that," she said, watching Ava's head edge closer and closer to my neck. Goosebumps formed along every inch of me at feeling her little puffs of breath and her mouth opening and closing repeatedly against my skin. "I hate to separate you two even just for the ride home."

"I've survived worse."

"I believe that, but trust me ... you'll feel it in your soul if she cries when you put her down and she's not ready to be let go."

I prayed like hell that Ava doesn't cry. I'll lose all right to fuck with Tank if I postpone our drive home in order to prevent her tears. As if she couldn't stop herself, Stephanie kissed me again before winding herself around me and our daughter as we left my job behind for the time being, and got busy living my family-man life.

Ava didn't cry, she just stared at me when I moved her from my shoulder and laid her in her rear-facing car seat, pausing in my duties to kiss her again. Although her eyes appear slightly crossed at times, that didn't stop their ability to stop me in my tracks so I could revel in the beauty and trust I see in them. I moved the blanket my Grandma Rosa had made aside so I could buckle my baby in, shaking my head once again at the intentional outfit.

Both Steph and Tank offered to drive so I could spend more time with my baby girl, but time with Stephanie is equally important to me. We made the drive home the same way we did when I first found out we were expecting ... with me driving and Steph sitting beside me, both of her hands clutching my leg like she didn't want to ever let me go. That's when I felt the soul-hit Steph had warned me about.

As she predicted, every man not attached to a monitor was standing somewhere between my parking spot in the underground garage and the elevator inside the building. It's not a parade per se, but it's disturbingly close to one. Steph got the diaper bag, which Tank immediately took from her ... the black and pink Batman tote Grandma Mazur had given at our baby shower, looking ridiculous dangling from his giant fist. As I made a beeline for my daughter, I thought if I didn't love Tank like a brother, I'd hate him for being here for my family when I couldn't be.

Ava's fascination with me didn't diminish during the twenty-minute drive. My heart tripped when her mouth opened and her lips tipped to the side as if smiling at seeing me again. I had to fight the urge to climb back into the Cayenne with her until I could compartmentalize all the emotions being lobbed at me ... love, guilt, gratitude, and regret, among a few of them.

"Glad you're home, Man," Bobby told me when Ava and I emerged from the backseat, giving me the typical handshake that turned into a brief shoulder-hit hug. "We've been watching over your girls for you."

"Thank you, but I'll take over from here," I told him, meaning it as I reached for the diaper bag before Tank moved any further away.

"Thank fucking God for that ... and that you're back! I can't take anymore tears, tantrums, and tirades," Lester added.

"I DID NOT cry, Santos," Steph told him, "except during labor ... and only Ranger saw that. And Ava is too little to throw a tantrum, nor would she. I've put in a request that she develop her Daddy's patience, not my lack of them. The tirades I'm not sure about. I'll need a couple hours of uninterrupted sleep and some quiet time to go over the last few weeks to know if the crime sticks."

"Hell, Steph," Lester said, "I'm not talking about you or the tAva-tot. Hal's the one who's been the crying, stressing, yell-machine, every time he got scared Ranger would single him out for any of us not sparing Ava a wet diaper or you having to wait for a report."

My wife glanced at Hal. "I hope Lester is just being a dick right now, and you weren't actually freaking out about Ava or I. Believe me, if there's a way to prevent the need for diaper changes, I would've figured it out by day two. And I would never bitch about not getting a report or background check fast enough. I'm usually trying to bribe Vince into 'accidentally' losing them so I don't actually have to waste hours that could be spent in better ways than locating a waste of skin."

'Halosaurus', as Steph still occasionally and affectionately calls him, turned bright red at having all eyes on him, but he did offer my wife a sheepish but grateful grin for getting him off Lester's hook and keeping him safe from my wrath that he likely was having nightmares about. He's seen firsthand the damage I do to anyone daring to even threaten Stephanie.

I shook hands with everyone who ended up in the lobby with us, appreciating their appearance and the support, but I'm anxious to be alone with my family to see how I fit into it now. Steph and Ava have been partners in crime since they were released from the hospital, and I have to figure out my place within what has been - up until today - a team of two. Steph saved me by mentioning Ava needing to be fed or changed. Suddenly everyone had something important to do elsewhere.

"Works every time," she told me, as I walked her and Ava into the elevator. "They've been incredible, but they've been so concerned I or our daughter would need something, I think they formed a twenty-four-hour-a-day watch. And it felt like one at times. I noticed the only time they'd disperse is for feedings or changings. They're a little scared of anything beyond carrying things for me and holding or making goofy faces at our baby. They've all seen my all-black Rangeman uniform turn zebra-striped with spit-up. And they still have dirty diaper-stink in their noses from when they offered to take out the diaper chains our diaper pail makes."

"Only you, Babe."

"Yep, only I am lucky enough to have a building full of sweet, helpful, bodyguard-friends who wanted to take care of us until my husband could get back to the job. Maybe it's the hormones, but I found myself thanking them instead of getting mad and telling them I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself and our baby."

"I think it's more that you've learned that they're hovering because they care, not because they're being paid or told to. You and I both need to learn that accepting help is not the same thing as admitting a personal defeat."

"You're right about that one. Over the course of the pregnancy, and especially after Ava was born, I realized it's not always about what we're feeling. Just letting the guys do something as simple as getting me a bottle of water, allowing them the 'honor' of hauling out poopy diapers, and not drawing my arm back when they offer to carry the diaper bag, seems to actually make them happy. So I've tried to let go of my wanting to prove that I can do everything on my own, and now I'm even lying about needing something just so everybody can feel involved in Ava's life."

When the elevator opened, Steph got out before Ava and I, and walked quickly to the front door. She unlocked it, reached inside to hit the light switch for the foyer, and then stepped aside to present the open door with an exaggerated two-hand flourish.

"Welcome back, baby," she and her blue eyes said solely to me, as I walked towards her with our newborn daughter cradled lovingly in my arms. "And welcome home, Daddy."