A/N: I'm not sure if this is going to venture into NC-17 territory, but with me you never know. It all depends on how the characters speak to me. I make no promises, so if those of you who know me, know I'm not just blowing smoke when I say I just don't know. I know what I'd like to do with some of them, but I can't make them do what they don't wanna do. Hopefully that made sense. Sorry this took so long to update, but I changed betas recently (I'm using my full-time beta now, Spikeslovebite, who edits all my BtVS stuff (and hopefully I'll be able to convince her to edit all my writings). And I know, I mislabeled the chapter numbers (I skipped chapter 3, my bad). Disclaimers in full force and effect.

Five

They didn't go far – only as far as a private estate on one of the Keys. Sorcha had no idea of their exact location or who owned the house they were currently occupying, nor did she much care. The only thing that mattered was the baby's safety and secondly her own.

She'd done what little she could by leaving traces of herself behind; watery, bloody fingerprints that no one saw her leave. Hopefully, it would be enough for the police to track her, or at least know she was still alive.

Any hope was better than none at all.

Sorcha settled into the queen-sized bed, pulling the sheets up over her shoulders. Curling an arm around Mairin, she cuddled the fractious baby close. The baby didn't fly well, the air pressure caused her problems and it always took her hours to calm down.

Gonzalvo had doubled their guards, bringing in more men from his base somewhere in South America. Hector was no longer the only one guarding her, but the others deferred to him. With his presence there was a small measure of safety and comfort. Perhaps she was becoming to used too her prison, because she wasn't frightened of Hector at all. He wasn't the most imposing of the bodyguards; however his demeanor demanded obedience. Just over six feet, with dark hair and light brown, almost topaz eyes, Hector was very attractive, even moreso than Gonzalvo. Despite his penchant for sleek, handmade European clothing and his well-groomed appearance, there was always something dark and oily about Gonzalvo that wasn't present in Hector. Sorcha had long given up trying to figure it out, though.

She looked up at him, finding his gaze on her and the baby. There was a soft look around his eyes which she'd been witnessing more and more lately. Sorcha smiled at him, and though he didn't return the gesture, Hector moved to block the view of the other bodyguard and stared down at her. "Sleep well," he whispered, before moving smoothly toward the door.

It was the first time she'd heard his voice spoken directly to her, and the small kindness brought fresh tears to her eyes. So much time had passed since she'd heard a note of concern and caring in someone else's voice, she almost didn't know how to react. Brushing a kiss over Mairin's brow, Sorcha closed her eyes and tried not to dream of rescue.

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Calleigh stood at the door of the Trace Lab. She was watching Speedle work, his attention wholly on the trace found at the two crime scenes. Though there had been no body and no real crime committed in the other penthouse, Horatio had declared it a secondary scene because of the evidence and the identity of one of the occupants. It was up to Speedle to find more physical evidence beyond the knife that might link the two.

Trying to find who the knife belonged to was proving difficult, so she'd come looking for Tim just because she needed a break. Knowing him, and she was pretty sure she did, he needed one also. Besides, her stomach was growling.

"Hey, Tim." There was no reaction from him and Calleigh rolled her eyes.

Headphones.

A couple of steps and she was inside the lab, standing next to his lean form. Calleigh waited, an impish smile playing about her lips. Tim was still unaware of her presence, the music and science absorbing all of his attention. She was finding it hard not to laugh at him, which only got worse when he started drumming his pencil against the table top. Calleigh was barely able to get a hint of what he was listening to through the earphones, but his drumming indicated it was something with a driving beat and heavy on the cymbal action. Tim moved to his left unexpectedly, bumping into Calleigh and catching both of them by surprise.

"Speed!" She stumbled back a little, grabbing onto the table to catch herself before she fell.

"Geezuz, Calleigh! What the hell were you doing?"

"I was watching you. I came in to see if you wanted to go grab something to eat?"

He was about to tell her no, even had his head shaking negatively, when a loud, mournful growl sounded from his belly. She stared at him for a long moment, unable to keep the amusement from sparkling in her eyes, when her own belly gave her away. Dissolving into helpless giggles against the table, Calleigh started shaking her own head. "C'mon, Speed, you can't deny you're hungry."

Deadpan, though his eyes started to spark with mirth, he said, "For a second I thought we had the Call of the Wild going on in here."

Calleigh's giggles rose again. "Nah, more like the hungry gator mating call."

At that, his composure broke and Tim actually broke into a smile. "Even for you, Cal, that was bad."

More giggles, and she tried breathlessly to get the words out. "Oh, I know, but I don't care since I got you to laugh."

"That wasn't me laughing, Calleigh." He shook his head, removing the earphones from around his neck and turning off his iPod.

"Trust me, Speed, coming from you, that was a laugh." Taking a deep, calming breath, Calleigh flipped her hair back off her face. 'C'mon, let's go."

"All right. Lemme just set this next test up."

Nodding her agreement, Calleigh waited the few short minutes while he lined up the test tubes and placed them carefully in the mass spectrometer. He worked smoothly and quickly and before she had time to get lost in her thoughts, Tim was tugging on her arm and moving toward the door.

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He didn't like the way the new guys were watching her. Had a problem with at least two of them, and he wasn't entirely certain how to broach the subject to El Comadreja. Once Sorcha settled down in the bed with the infant, Hector motioned the other two out of the room. He didn't dare leave her alone with them, something about the way Lopez followed her with his eyes spoke of barely suppressed . . . he'd call it aggression, but that wasn't entirely it. Felt more like Lopez viewed her as less than a person, merely the boss' fuck-toy, and that really bothered him. She wasn't like that at all.

Sorcha wasn't cut out for this life, wasn't coping well at all. Hector had watched her leave her fingerprints on the wall and on the door, blocking the view from the other bodyguards. He'd said nothing, hoping that somehow the police would find the traces of her occupancy and follow the trail to her.

His orders said nothing about the girl; nothing about rescuing anyone. They were explicit and exacting. Gather the intelligence needed, file the reports, and let the others in more overt positions take action. But he was finding it more and more difficult to maintain the facade of uncaring bodyguard. She was an innocent and she needed to get away from her captor. This was the part of undercover life he hated more than anything else, but until recently, he'd had no problem with it, or anything else he was forced to do.

And this certainly wasn't what he'd set out to do while he was in the Academy.

Keeping his implacable facade up, he moved to stand in front of the door to Sorcha's bedroom. He was the only line of defense she and the baby had, and even then he couldn't protect either of them from the one person he should be. El Comadreja. The Weasel.

The man he was spying on was, right at this moment, screwing another woman while the mother of his child slept behind him. He sneered internally, wondering if his orders extended to assassination. It certainly was beginning to look like the only way to remove the threat to both international security and Sorcha.

Hank Campbell, currently known as Hector Calzados, folded his arms over his chest, staring down Lopez, merely raising an eyebrow at him. Lopez stared back, then grunted a bit before wandering off. Hank stared at him, wondering just how long it would be before he killed the other man.

It was going to be a long night.

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Dinner – or rather, the almost midnight snack they were sharing – had proven to be a surprisingly relaxed affair. Tim had decided while he followed Calleigh out of the building that he was going to leave the cases behind and focus on nothing.

It was always a hard thing with him. Some of the victims left a lasting impression and, more often than not, he found himself using little mind tricks to keep from seeing their faces like some sick slideshow in his head. Focusing on nothing in particular was much easier with Calleigh around. If nothing else, she could always be counted on to bring up something unintentionally funny and trivial to distract him.

And once again, she didn't disappoint him. Right now, Calleigh was going on and on about some movie star or another, touching on all the gossip, and she was adorably funny. It was hard not to laugh at her and Tim decided he wasn't going to try. For once, he wasn't going to let everything get to him. Maybe then some answers about the cases would come to him. Or maybe he'd stop seeing the faces of the victims.

Twenty minutes later, after she'd gone on and on about some movie she'd just seen – the main female character had killed her lover with poison distilled from flowers – and how faulty the science was, he looked at her and said, "Cal, you were watching a movie and thinking about the job?"

It was something so totally unexpected of her that he had to ask, though he inwardly cringed the minute the words were out of his mouth.

The look on her face spoke volumes and she sheepishly dipped her head. "Well, yeah. Don't you?"

The admission went a long way toward easing something knotted in his belly and Speed shook his head. He mumbled something low, and when Calleigh called him on it, he repeated himself. "I'm always thinking about the job. Sometimes they follow you home, you know? Like lost puppies or something."

She leaned toward him, whispering conspiratorially, "You know, sometimes I think that's why Alexx talks to them."

He couldn't believe she'd just said that either. "Cal, sometimes . . ." He shook his head, uncertain of his thoughts. "Never mind."

Tim grabbed the check, fishing into his wallet and dropping down a more than generous tip. He didn't wait for her to follow him, heading for the cashier, determined not to follow his line of thought. He'd had more than one trippy experience with Alexx and her scary, almost Ms. Cleo thing, but he really didn't want to get into it with Calleigh.

She caught up with him just outside the door to the restaurant, her hand on his arm. "Hey, what was that all about?"

"Nothing." He shrugged her off, his steps purposeful. She paused for a moment, then hurried after him.

"Speed?" She reached for his arm again and he halted, though he didn't look at her. "Wanna talk about it?"

He huffed out a deep breath and they were close enough that it ruffled her hair. He shook his head, still looking away. When she didn't move her hand, he looked down at her. "I just have a hard time letting go."

His voice was pitched so low that she had to strain to hear him, but Calleigh knew what he meant and how much it cost him to admit that much.

"We all do." Her voice was kind, the drawl not as pronounced as it sometimes was, and her smile wasn't blinding. "You remember the Caplins?"

Just the name conjured up images he'd really rather forget. "Yeah. I remember."

Calleigh stared up at him, sympathy in her jade green eyes. "I had nightmares for weeks about them. Those poor babies and it was their daddy that did it."

Speed swallowed heavily, fighting the gorge rising up in his throat. That case had been horrific and he wasn't ashamed to admit, at least to himself, there had been more than one sleepless night afterward. "Bastard."

He didn't say anything else, and they stood there for long minutes, both of them lost in thought. Calleigh looked away and her hand on his arm tightened. "We're gonna find her. I know it."

Neither one of them bothered to pretend that she wasn't being anything but optimistic.

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Rough hands tried pulling her from the bed, one clamping tightly over her mouth, the other wrapped in her curls. There was no light, nothing to reveal her attacker's identity. Sorcha panicked, trying to loosen the grip of the person holding her. Her flailing arm struck the baby and Mairin began crying. The hand in her hair loosened, then yanked harder, ripping out her hair by the roots. In reflex, she bit down hard, forcing a loud grunt of pain from her attacker. Mairin's cries increased, her tiny lungs giving off as much volume as possible.

Fighting hard to protect Mairin and to keep from being dragged from the bed, Sorcha bit the hand again, this time breaking the skin. A loud shout from her attacker followed, and he climbed up on the bed, sitting on her waist. He pinned her down, slapping her across the face hard enough to jar her teeth

"Callate, you fucking bitch! Puta!" He kept muttering imprecations at her, punctuated by his fists. Sorcha tried kicking him off, but he clamped a hand around her throat, holding her down. "Shut the fuck up, bitch."

His next blow struck the baby, whose cries escalated into panicked screams. Sorcha reacted instantly. She bucked up, lifting her hips off the bed and curling her fingers into his face. Pushing him off, Sorcha drew up her legs, kicking out hard. She succeeded in getting him off her and scrambled to gather the baby in her arms. Curling around Mairin, Sorcha held on tight.

Lopez stared at her from the end of the bed, his eyes wild, blood welling in the cuts she'd made. "Shut that fucking baby up or I'll shoot it," he growled at her, brandishing a knife.

"Put the gun down, Lopez."

A new voice broke in, and Sorcha's head snapped up in its direction.

"Fuck you, Calzados."

"Lopez, right now no one but us knows about this. If you don't drop the gun, the boss is going to find out. He'll want you dead. Drop the gun."

"Why do you care about this bitch?"

Hank didn't shift his attention away from Lopez, but he addressed Sorcha. "Are you all right?"

She nodded, all the while trying to soothe the wailing baby, not caring about anything else.

"Get off the bed and come here." He moved in closer to the bed, one hand held out for Sorcha, the other with the pistol trained on Lopez.

"If she moves I'm going to kill her."

"No, you aren't." Hank moved closer, his gun inches away from Lopez' head. "You let the girl live and you live."

Sorcha eased from the bed slowly, cradling the still hysterical infant to her.

"Drop it, Lopez."

Lopez fired, narrowly missing Sorcha. Hank didn't hesitate, shooting Lopez in the temple, killing him instantly. Sorcha started shaking, and Hank grabbed her, pulling her in close. Blood splatters covered all three of them. "You're okay, she's okay. I promise."

"He. . . why did he do that?" The baby was cradled between them and he absently dropped a kiss on the downy curls crowning the top of her head.

Instead of answering her question, Hank said, "Get ready to leave. Boss will've heard the shots. He's gonna move us."

Letting her go, Hank pushed her toward her clothing, then turned to leave the room. "Don't waste time."

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Gonzalvo was livid. First, he'd been forced to move after his men botched the job of removing his buyers. Hector's interruption was something he normally didn't tolerate, especially when he was with one of his women. Now. . . . now he had to move again, all because one of his men thought he could touch what belonged to him.

Lopez was lucky he was already dead.

If he wasn't already dead, the things Gonzalvo had just done to his corpse would've killed him anyway.

Yet none of that left him feeling satisfied. He was still seething with fury. His nostrils flared as Orlando entered the room. "What?"

"Helicopter is ready, Jefe."

"You made sure the woman is gone?" They both knew he wasn't talking about the witch.

"Yeah, she's gone."

El Comadreja moved toward the door, casually wiping off the blood from his hands. Idly dropping the towel to the floor, he questioned, "Where is she?"

"She's with Calzados." He waited a heartbeat, then asked, "What do you want me to do about this?"

"Nothing. Leave him."

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"AFIS came back with no hits." Eric Delko looked up as Speed entered the lab. He kept talking, not waiting for a reaction. "So I switched databases and tried INS. I got a hit one set. Guy's name is Ernesto Gutierrez. He's wanted in three countries for trafficking."

"So he's one of the good guys." Tim's tone made Eric grimace, but he knew exactly what his partner meant.

"Yeah. Nothing on headless guy." He pointed to the photographs laid out on the table.

"Great. We have no way of identifying him then." Tim moved aside a couple of the pictures. Inspiration struck him and he asked, "Have you tried Interpol?"

"Why would I do that?" Eric lifted his head, looking at his counterpart from beneath furrowed brows. "We don't normally check with them."

"I know, but since the other guy is wanted in three countries, maybe his buddy is too."

"We should clear it with H first."

"Clear what with me?" Both men looked up, wry expressions on their faces. Once again, Horatio Caine's habit of walking silently caught members of his team unaware.

Tim spoke up, running his theory by the lieutenant. The older man quickly agreed, giving Eric the go-ahead. Shifting over to the computer housing the hook-ups to the fingerprint databases, Eric quickly set up the protocols for hooking into the Interpol system. Within minutes they got a hit.

"What's it say?" Horatio was standing back, too far away to read the fine print on the screen, but judging by Eric's sudden change in posture they had something.

"Prints come back to a Jorge Vanegas. He's a suspect in at least ten different cases and apparently the Brits want him for questioning on a majority of them. He was born in Gibraltar, which could explain why they want him." Eric listed the most recent crimes, and Horatio shook his head.

"Well, we can inform Interpol we've got their man, only he's not going to be answering charges any time soon." He turned to leave the room, remarking, "Nice work, Speed."