Disclaimer: The characters and their world belong to Janet Evanovich. I'm just playing with them for fun, and all mistakes are my own.

Chapter 11:

Making a life

Previously: And in retrospect, it was a good thing I was already at Haywood when Tank called me just after 3AM on a balmy night in early August. I was still half asleep when I answered the phone, but his next words had me pulling on the first pair of pants that I could find and rushing for the door.

Ranger was back, and he needed me.

Ranger's POV

Right cross. Left cross. Jab. Jab. Right. Left. Jab. Jab.

The steady rhythm of my fists landing on the heavy bag helped me finally take my mind to that quiet, dark place I'd craved. And if I felt the dull thud of each impact travel up my arms, or the sharp sting as the flesh on my knuckles began to split, well it was nothing less than I deserved.

It'd been two weeks, 2 days and twenty hours since I'd kissed my Babe goodbye and hopped on a chopper headed for DC, and almost ten days since an already messed up mission went FUBAR. Fucked up beyond all recognition.

I'd arrived back at the Haywood building just after 0200 hours, but there was no way I could go home, yet. When I'd stopped on the fifth floor and demanded an update from the shift supervisor it had hit me that as welcome a sight as RangeMan was, it was just a building. My home wasn't located two floors above our heads.

At some point in the last few months, or maybe even years, my real home had become a certain curly haired Jersey girl with big blue eyes, and an even bigger attitude. The fact that she was finally mine and asleep upstairs in our bed made me want to beat on my chest, but there was no way I could just crawl in next to her. Not yet. Maybe never. Not until I could forget the sight of children lying on the ground like just so many discarded toys.

I'd completed my objective, and delivered the people I was supposed to back stateside, for all the fucking good it did. And then I'd sat through three days of exit interviews and debriefings. Meetings where I repeated the mission details over and over to a never ending series of faceless government bureaucrats. Where I reduced the smell of the jungle and the screams of civilians to a concise list of facts – times, dates, and number of casualties – that could be recorded in a classified report, and then promptly buried under a pile of red tape so high it'd be like the mission had never existed.

But I'd remember. If I were a different sort of man, I'd hole up somewhere with a bottle for as long as it took me to forget. If I were a more selfish man, I go straight upstairs and try to bury myself so deep inside my woman that the memories would never find me. But I have a business to run and I never want this darkness inside of me to touch Stephanie. She deserved better. So, instead, I was in the gym at RangeMan, beating the shit out of a punching bag until I either collapsed in exhaustion or my hands became so crippled that I can't go on.

For god knows how long, the only sound in the room was the rasp of my breath and dull thud of my fists striking padded leather. But then, slowly, a voice penetrated the fog in my head. It was soft and insistent, and each long- voweled, Jersey-accented syllable drew me out, inch by torturous inch.

"Ranger, look at me," she was saying. "I need to you look at me. I need to know you're OK."

With each entreaty, my punches slowed, and I finally stopped altogether and turned toward her. Stephanie says my 'please' is a lethal weapon, but hearing her say she needs me? I'd burn the world down to the ground and crawl through the ashes if I knew she needed me.

"There you are." Those blue eyes were suspiciously bright, but there was no fear in them as she looked at me.

She approached me slowly, cautiously, giving me plenty of time to draw away, and I silently thanked whoever had told her what to do. My skin felt too tight, with every muscle and sinew like a tightly coiled spring, but I still hungered for her touch. I wasn't at all fit for polite society, but when her touch came, I felt something finally loosen inside me. One soft hand cupped my jaw and the other slid up to caress my cheek.

"I'm glad you're home," she said softly.

And just like that, I was home. I'd promised I wouldn't, and I'm a selfish bastard for what happened next, but I couldn't resist her any more that I could stop breathing. I grasped both of her wrists and hauled her close, sealing my lips to hers with a kiss so hungry it bordered on desperate. And when it ended, I didn't completely break our connection. My lips hovered over hers, our breaths mingling and the faint scents of her toothpaste and shampoo filling my senses. She pulled back first, her eyes searching mine for a long, breathless moment. And then a look of understanding flitted across her beautiful face and she closed the distance between us, the press of her lips gentle against mine.

In that moment, that little girl from the Burg did what a dozen shrinks and bureaucrats and a whole group of terrorists couldn't do. She broke me, and then built me back up with every stroke of her tongue against mine. With every caress of her hands against my face, my back, and my chest.

Our coupling was fast and furious, and it was more luck than skill on my part when she came shuddering against me several moments later. Three strokes later, I followed, crying out as I emptied myself into her. We lay there, staring into each other's eyes as our breathing slowed and our bodies slowly cooled. But still, I didn't speak. I wasn't sure what to say: I love you? I missed you? Sorry for taking you on the floor of the gym like an animal?

Babe finally broke the silence, as first a snort and then a giggle burst free from her. She brushed a kiss across my lips. "Now that pretty much beats every workout I've ever had in here."

I couldn't help but chuckle. "Glad to help." I winced slightly as I sat up, every joint protesting as I straightened my clothing, and then went looking for hers. "This isn't how I imagined my homecoming, Babe." I'd meant to stay away. Until I could put myself back together, be the man she deserved again.

Her eyes twinkled as she shimmied into her yoga pants. Her panties were a lost cause, mostly due to me ripping them off of her just before I buried myself in her. "I dunno. It was pretty great for welcome back nookie." She held out her hand. "Let's go upstairs, Carlos."

I took her hand, but cursed softly when I checked the time on the clock above the door. It was almost 0430 hours. The men could've walked in on us at any moment. Regret flooded me as I stopped her at the door. "Thanks for coming after me, but how did you know? Vince? Ram?"

She reached up and kissed the tip of my nose. "No, Tank."

Tank hadn't been on duty when I'd arrived on premises, but I should've known he'd be aware and have my back. The man himself was guarding the door.

"I cleared the floor. Scrambled the cameras," he told us gruffly when we met him in the hallway. He handed over my key fob and civilian cell phone. "You're both offline until further notice."

Babe leaned up and kissed his cheek. "Aw, you're such a big softy."

Tank shook his head. "I'll deny it till the day I die. Now get the hell out of here." He clapped me on the shoulder. "Welcome back, Rangeman."

Thanks to Tank, we didn't meet anyone in the hallway and the elevator rose quickly and smoothly to the seventh floor. Babe ushered me into the apartment, but instead of taking me to bed, she led me into the bathroom.

She pulled out the first aid kit and began to remove the wraps from my hands. When she was finished, she ran her thumb over each split and crack. "It's not too bad. I can take care of it here, or call Bobby?"

"No. Just you." The apartment was quiet and dim in the pre-dawn hours and I wasn't ready for anyone else to intrude. Not yet.

Her hands were gentle but sure as she cleaned and dabbed antibacterial ointment on my cuts and rewrapped them with gauze. My surprise must have shown on my face, because when she finished tucking in the gauze, she sat back on her heels with a grin. "Hey, you're the one who makes first aid training mandatory for field employees."

She stowed the first aid supplies and finally stood. "You hungry? Need a shower?" She made a face. "Forget that. I should've asked that before we wrapped your hands."

I just shook my head and drew her back into the bedroom. The covers were mussed and thrown back and the evidence of her presence in my bed made the caveman in me growl with pleasure. "You stayed."

Instead of rolling her eyes at such an obvious statement, she ducked her head, and blushed. "I slept better here."

And I didn't care if it made me a pussy, but I'd sleep better with her with me, here. She was quiet as we toed off our shoes and undressed, but when we were finally in bed she turned in my arms and asked the question I'd been dreading for the last hour.

"Do you want to talk about it? Can you talk about it?

The answers were Hell no, and not really. "No." She stiffened in my arms slightly, so I sighed and hugged her closer. "But I'll do it anyway." I couldn't tell her everything, but she deserved to know what kind of man was sharing her bed.

"Carlos…" She started to wind her arms around me, but looking into her eyes right then would break me, so I turned her until we were spooning again.

When she tried to turn again, I stopped her. "It has to be like this." I took a deep breath and began. For the first part of the story, I could pretend I was still in DC and recount just the facts. Well, a heavily edited version of events, anyway. A medical mission consisting of the head of surgery at a big name teaching hospital, a Nobel laureate, and a Senator's wife was taken hostage in a nameless village in an undisclosed South American country.

The US government doesn't officially negotiate with terrorists, so I and a six man team fresh out of Ranger school were unofficially dispatched to recover our people. And I'm sure it wasn't just because the insurgents had snatched the spouse of the chair of Armed Forces appropriations subcommittee.

The first few days of the mission had gone like clockwork. I went straight from Andrews AFP to the Pentagon, got briefed, assembled the team, and then we were boots on the ground less than 48 hours after I kissed my Babe goodbye. Since the intel we'd been given wasn't worth the paper it was written on, it took us another three days to locate the village where the medical team was held.

I'll never know what gave us away, or if we could've even avoided being spotted, but we were barely in position when the first villager was trotted outside and shot. Right in front of us. I've led dozens of missions and had to make a whole lot of fucked up judgment calls, but this situation was one of the worst. How do you weigh one life against another? Who was I to choose who to save? But the US government had trained me to be a soldier, and not a philosopher, so I completed my mission, which was to save the doctors and the Senator's wife.

Three villagers were wounded, and two children died before my men and I were able to take down the captors. But hey, most of the Americans were unharmed, so it was all good, right? We lost one of the nurses on the trip back to the extraction point, but the big shots and Mrs. Senator made it home to their families. I'm not saying I shouldn't have rescued the Americans, but I still can't just reduce the lives of those villagers to collateral damage.

"Maybe it hit me harder this time because they were kids," I said as I finished the story. "One little girl had curly hair…" And blue eyes. And skin just a few shades lighter than mine. She was almost exactly how I imagine mine and Stephanie's child would look.

My arms had gone slack, so Steph turned to face me. There were tears in her eyes. "Carlos…"

I closed my eyes and twisted my head to the side to avoid her touch. "Don't," I whispered, my voice rough even to my own ears. "I don't deserve your tears. I'm not a good man."

She shushed me, and her lips ghosted over my cheeks, kissing away tears I hadn't even been aware of. "I don't pity you," she said softly.

My eyes flew open in surprise, and I found myself nose to nose with Stephanie. Her eyes were still suspiciously moist, but determination burned from those crystal blue orbs. "You may think different. But I see you, and I know you're a good man."

"Babe…" She deserved a much better man. "I let those kids be killed."

"I used to drive myself crazy with what ifs. If I'd gotten the goods on Ramirez first, Lula wouldn't have been raped. If I'd stopped Cone sooner…" She shook her head. "I know it's not exactly the same, but I'm going to remind you of something you said once, and that my friend Eddie said, too." She pulled back again so that she could look me right in the eye. "The only ones responsible for those kids' deaths are the men who pulled the trigger."

"Babe…" Maybe she had a point, but they were still dead on my watch. Their deaths were yet another black mark against me.

"Ranger…" She silenced me with a finger to my lips. "You did not kill those kids, but you did save the lives of the hostages and every other villager being held." Her lips quirked up slightly. "I bet you even got your men out of there in one piece."

I shrugged. "McGee got grazed. Left arm."

She chuckled. "At least it wasn't his gun hand, right? He probably didn't even need a band aid." She sobered abruptly. "I know I wasn't there, but you did your job and I'm proud of you."

I was glad one of us was. Maybe Babe was rubbing off on me and I'd said that aloud, because she just shook her head again.

"I wish I knew how to say this better, but you've sacrificed so much to keep everyone safe, and I am proud of you." She leaned up and kissed me gently on the lips. "And no matter what, I'll love you till the day I die. Got that soldier?"

"Babe…" That was exactly the right thing to say. Looking back, that was the moment I truly let her all the way in. She'd heard the worst, and I believed her when she said she still loved me. "I don't deserve you," I whispered against her lips. And then I closed the final millimeters that separated us and tried to pour every ounce of love and gratitude that I was feeling into my kiss. Maybe I didn't deserve her, but I was done fighting it. She had me for as long as she wanted me. Hell, who was I kidding? She'd have a hard time getting rid of me now.

When we separated, she giggled softly. "You say that now, but just wait until I'm PMSing next month. You know how I get."

I couldn't help but grin as I rolled over onto my back and pulled her against me. "I'll just stock up on chocolate."

Babe yawned and laid her head on my shoulder. "Don't forget the ice cream," she mumbled.

R&S~R&S~R&S

Stephanie drifted off to sleep shortly after that, but even though I'd barely slept since I'd left her, I lay awake for a long time, just listening to her breathe and marveling at this small woman who loved me. A couple hours before, I was trying to convince myself to let her go, but now I felt lighter and freer that I had in years. Intellectually, I knew that Stephanie Plum couldn't fight my battles for me. No one could save me but me, but she made me actually want to stand up and fight my own demons.

She'd surprised me with her acceptance, but I should be used to that by now. Babe never failed to surprise me, and she never disappointed. When we first met, I'd never expected her to last as a bounty hunter, but she was still on the job five years later. And the way she'd taken charge of her life and asked for training still blew me away. She'd grown so much over the last year, and it wasn't because Morelli had berated her, or I'd forced her to. She'd applied herself and become an integral part of RangeMan.

And at some point, she'd become an integral part of my life, too. She rocked my world every single night, and then turned around and made me laugh every morning. She was trained, and fit, and had proven time and again that she was a real partner to me. And more importantly, she no longer chafed at all of the security measures my life forced upon her. Well, not much, anyway.

I had Jorgenson to thank for that. He'd laid down the law during the Moreno fiasco and finally gotten her to see that her life was important, and how her actions affected everyone else. And then he'd done something I'd never been able to do. He'd gotten her to give up that drafty, unsecure apartment that even my three year old niece could break into.

And she'd taken steps on her own to make sure no one knew where she'd moved to. Her mail gets delivered to a PO box, and the guys are still laughing at the new address on her driver's license. It's the same vacant lot I use for my official address, and I have to admit that I like it. I still haven't convinced her to move in with me, but at least we're living together according to the DMV.

And she'd done more than just fit into my life. Somehow, she'd expanded my world beyond its rigid confines. I hadn't taken time off in years before that first lazy Sunday at my apartment – and certainly not for anything as frivolous as watching a movie with a friend. I had a family that loved me, a building full of men that would follow me into Hell, and as much as it pains me to admit it now, plenty of women I could call for sex when I wanted it. Not that I'd wanted anyone but Babe for a long time. But I'd never known a woman like Stephanie, who didn't give a damn about my money or how she'd look on my arm. She'd just wanted me for my own sake, as a friend and a lover.

Stephanie drove me crazy half the time, calmed and centered me the rest of the time, and never failed to make me smile. She soothed me just by being there, but never failed to call me on my shit.

My life didn't lead itself to relationships? Maybe it didn't, but for Steph, I was willing to take the risk. And when I'd opened myself up to her, I'd rediscovered a whole host of other relationships that I'd been missing out on. With Stephanie at my side, I'd shown up for Easter dinner at my parents' for the first time in years. And maybe it's wrong to use your girlfriend as a buffer, but seeing my family through her eyes made me appreciate them more. And after the second dinner with my family, my mom had threatened to smack me upside the head if I ever let Stephanie go. I may be Marisol Mañoso's baby boy, but Stephanie had won her over the first time she moaned her way through two slices of mama's Tres Leches cake.

And when Stephanie had seen me watching her nieces with a wistful expression on my face when we'd taken them to the park a few months ago, she'd somehow known what I was thinking. She'd gently pointed out that the only one stopping me from seeing Julie more was myself, and then she'd not so gently put my phone in my hand and told me to call Rachel to work out more visits. I'd been sure Rachel and Julie would tell me to go to hell, but thanks to Steph, Julie and I Skype weekly now, and I'd visited her twice while I was in Miami this summer.

Somehow, when I wasn't looking, I'd built a life with this girl from the Burg, and it was a pretty damn good one. I still carried two guns and a knife at all times, and I'll never be caught alive in a minivan, but with her at my side, things like family dinners and children don't seem so impossible.

As I lay there, Steph began to stir and mumble and I discreetly checked the time. 0630 - about 48 hours past my bedtime. As I settled her more securely in my arms, I thought ahead to the months and years that stretched in front of me. I had a whole life to look forward to, and I wanted to spend it with my Babe. I smiled as I let myself begin to plan. I needed to check in at the Miami office in the next couple of weeks, and maybe this time I'd ask Stephanie to come with me. We could walk along the beach, take Julie out to lunch. We could even make time to lay out next to the pool at my house in Miami – the one no one but Tank knows about, and the house that Steph would probably call the Bat Cave.

It was time.

AN: Thanks again for all of the great reviews and encouragement. Sorry to leave the last chapter as a cliffie, but here is Ranger's POV and why Tank got Stephanie out of bed at three in the morning. I think one more chapter will wrap this up, and I hope to have it out in the next few days.