Unapologize

By: PricklySare

A/N: You guys are amazing. Every one of you. The reviews and responses to this story just floor me. I haven't been purposely leaving you hanging with cliffies, but the truth is that is the way the chapters are laid out...and as a complete story there wouldn't be a cliff hanger. LOL.

As always, thanks to my M's who help me stay sane while listening to Ranger whisper his ideas in my head. Thanks also to Stayce who edits the things that I otherwise would miss... what do you mean I used the word, Babe, that many times?... oh, ick, I did. Sigh.

Onward with the story.

Sare

Chapter Fifty-One: Ranger Heads Home

Ranger's POV

I picked up the phone and dialed Agent Cassidy's number again, it was time to get some answers. "Cassidy," he said, after the first ring.

"Are you ready to discuss my property?" I asked him.

"Sure. Though I'd venture to guess she wouldn't take kindly to being referred to that way."

I could only imagine the way she'd react to being called property. If I'd learned anything about her in the past few years, it was that she didn't belong to anyone. "You know who I am then?"

"I've got a pretty good idea. Though from the paperwork I've seen recently, you don't exist anymore. "

"Stories of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

"I'm sure she'll be glad to know that," he said, sounding amused. "So, to what do I owe this phone call?"

"I need information, and I'm hoping you'll be able to help me."

"Why aren't you calling your team? Why not Steph?" he asked.

His familiarity with Steph bothered me, and I had an unusual surge of jealousy wash through me, making my voice gruffer than I'd intended. "There's a leak inside Rangeman, and it's in my best interest to remain among the dead," I said. "I figure you'll have a better chance of moving around unnoticed."

"That might be the case, and I've just had a meeting with your core team. Seems your men, and Steph, are anxious to have you back in Trenton."

"How is she doing? Are you still at Rangeman?"

"She's fine," he said. "And yes, I'm still at Rangeman, which is where you should be. All the answers you're going to need are right here."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Let's just say that you've got a truly dedicated core team, and an amazing woman."

I already knew that, and I wanted nothing more than to get back to Trenton. "I need to find the leak and I have three possibles that I need run. I don't want to contact Tank directly because all of our communication equipment is monitored," I said.

"Give me the names, I'll talk to them, and we'll get right on it."

I gave him the info and then said, "Cassidy, Steph needs to be kept safe. There is more going on than just my supposed death. She's in trouble."

"What kind?"

"Of the contract variety. I don't want her out of sight until we figure out who called it in."

"Understood. When are you getting back?"

"I'll be on the next helo out. Tell the team not to let on I'm alive. I'll be coming in with a cover ID that's unknown."

"Will do," he said, and I hung up.

I walked out of the office and placed a kiss on Alondra's head, where she was sitting at the table coloring. "Get the information you needed?" Kass asked.

"Not exactly."

"What's going on?"

"Looks like I'm heading back to Trenton today."

"Are you sure that's wise?"

"Whether it is or not, it's what has to happen." I sat down at the table and ran my hands through my hair. "I spoke to Agent Cassidy. He said the answers I need are there."

With a sigh Kass sat down in the chair next to me, rubbing her stomach. "You've got to do what you think is best, Carlos. Just be safe, okay?"

"You're a good woman, Kass, Rico is a lucky man."

"Do me a favor and remind him of that before you leave," she said laughing.

"I don't think I need to. I'm pretty sure he already knows."

"Yeah, he does. So, I'll give him a call and get you out of here. When everything is settled, I want to meet your Stephanie."

"You will."

"Before the wedding?" I just smiled at her. "There is going to be a wedding, right?"

"Yes," I said.

She grinned at me, "Does she know?"

"Not yet, but she will," I said, with a smile. It was going to be one hell of a conversation too.

"Just don't fu—mess it up this time," she said sliding a look to her daughter. "I still have such a hard time with that," she said laughing. "My poor kid is going to swear like a Marine, and I'm going to get the nasty eye from all the other mothers."

"Just tell them it gives her character."

"Yeah, that'll go over well." She picked up her cell phone, "I'll call Rico and let him know you need to leave. He'll set it up."

"Appreciate it."

An hour later I was packed and ready to walk out the door when Alondra stopped me. "Uncle 'Los, I drawed this for you," she said lifting a piece of paper above her head. It was filled with colored squiggles and I couldn't help but smile.

"It's beautiful, Goose. I'll make sure to hang it up when I get home."

"Really?" she asked, her eyes wide.

"Yes, really," I said, kneeling down at her level. "I'll put it in my office so everyone can see it. Thank you."

She wrapped her little arms around my neck and squeezed. "Come back soon, Uncle 'Los. I love you."

I had to swallow around the lump that had materialized in my throat before I could say, "Love you too, Goose. Be good for your momma."

"'Kay," she said before running off.

"The helo is waiting, man," Rico said, walking in the door. "Ready to get this shit done?"

"Let's roll," I said.

I'd caught the helo in Twentynine Palms, taking it to Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert. There I'd boarded a military cargo flight headed for Maryland. Several hours later I arrived at Andrews Air Force Base and had a choice to make. I could have a helo land on the roof of Rangeman, and alert everyone of my arrival, or I could make a High Altitude Low Opening jump. The Halo jump won out.

It was half a day later before I was pulling the ripcord on my parachute and silently landing on the roof of Rangeman. I'd called Cassidy before the plane took off from Andrews, giving him my ETA, and to set up a meeting with everyone at the penthouse. I removed my fob and scrambled the cameras from the roof, making my way to my apartment. My heart rate picked up the closer to the door I got. I knew that Steph was on the other side, and I needed to touch her, to hold her, and to make sure she was alright.

I'd barely gotten the door closed when I was slammed against the wall by a flying woman. Steph was in my arms, her legs wrapped around my hips, arms looped around my neck. Her lips were on mine, her tongue inside my mouth, and all logical thought fled. I'd been dreaming about this for two weeks, and now that I had it, I didn't want to stop. I reversed our positions so that her back was pressed against the wall, and slid my hand under the Rangeman shirt she was wearing. Her skin felt like silk, and I growled low in my throat at the smoothness.

I nipped down her neck before kissing my way back up, "God, I've missed you," she moaned.

"Missed you too, Babe," I said as I moved to the other side of her neck.

"You know, Ranger, used to be a time when we actually rated a 'hello'," came Santos' amused voice from behind me.

My breathing was ragged, and I didn't want to deal with anyone else. I just wanted to rip Steph's clothes off and bury myself inside her until I could think again. Probably sometime after we'd killed each other. Steph laid her head against my shoulder and sighed before saying, "Les, I should shoot you where you stand."

"Nah, you love me too much."

"Don't be so sure."

"Now that you two are aware of your surrounding again, perhaps we should try to plan our next move, and then you could get back to...whatever," Tank said with a grin. "Nice to have you back with us, boss."

"Nice to be back." I slid Steph's body against mine before setting her on her feet, and leading her to the loveseat in the living room.

"You're looking pretty spry for a dead guy," the man I assumed to be Cassidy said.

"Agent Cassidy, I presume?" He didn't look much like the young kid I'd carried out on my shoulders, but I knew who he was. Later on, I'd ask him how he'd gotten involved; right now wasn't the time though.

He nodded. "You must me Ranger."

"So I've been told, but call me Christobal," I said.

"Christobal?" Bobby asked. Steph looked at me, her head tilted to the side.

"Yeah, I needed an alias that wasn't common knowledge. You're looking at Christobal Ortega."

"Your Phoenix identity?" Tank asked. I nodded.

"Looks like you're going to need another one," Lester remarked. He was right, now that I'd used this one, it was compromised and I'd need to store another one.

I could tell Steph had questions, but she remained quiet. "What information have you found on the leak?" I asked.

Steph leaned back against the arm of the loveseat so she was looking me in the eyes. "We know who it is, and we've decided to keep it under wraps until we find out if we can get a few other questions answered." I arched my eyebrow at her and she grinned, "Our favorite employee, Hades." I started to stand up, ready to hunt him down and kill him, but she stopped me with her hand on my arm. "Not so fast. We've got a tracker on his personal car. You see, the other day, he introduced us to his...girlfriend, and wanted me to show her around. The guys and I discussed it, and we agree that she could be the one behind everything."

"Why?"

"Just a feeling I have, but I've got a search running on her so we'll see what comes up. It didn't find anything on her the first round, so I expanded the parameters of the search. I don't expect anything will show up with this one either, but I'll check it in the morning.

"When I met her something about her just seemed wrong. And Hades isn't exactly a ladies man, so it's unlikely that she's with him out of love or even lust. She's leading him around like he's on a leash, and he's just dumb enough to think he's the one with the power."

"You've got some pretty amazing instincts, Steph, but if she really is behind it, that means she's too close. My handler is devious and has an endless supply of cunning that's gotten her far in her career. She's also callous, vapid, and narcissistic. Not a good combination."

"What I don't understand, is why is she going to all this trouble to destroy me? Up until Hades brought her in, I'd never met her."

I realized that nobody knew about what had happened in Mexico, or that in all likelihood, it was my fault that this whole mess was happening. "That's probably my fault," I said. All eyes swiveled to me, waiting for my explanation. "Before I left for this last mission, she left me the keycard for her room, and she took exception when I didn't take her up on her obvious offer."

"I still don't see how that has anything to do with me," Steph said.

"It has everything to do with you, Babe," I said running my hands along her back. "I turned her down because of you." Her eyes widened, and I felt her heart speed up. But when she spoke, her voice was calm and steady.

"Okay, but how would she have known that?"

Since I didn't want to have that conversation in front of my men and Agent Cassidy, and it didn't seem pertinent to the matter at hand, I said, "That's a conversation I'd rather have in private." She didn't say anything, just nodded her head. "She would have had to do a lot of digging to find out about who you are. I've never brought up your name, so she went out of her way to find you," I continued.

"Do you think she figured if she got rid of me, then you'd take her up on her offer?"

"It's possible, and had things gone differently on the mission, I'd even go as far as to say that she'd think it was a possibility. The way things went though, leads me to believe she's just out to destroy me, and you're just a convenient tool."

"Why do you say that?" Cassidy asked.

"The mission was FUBAR'ed from the start, intel was incorrect, people who knew too much were killed, and something was just off about the whole thing. Instead of sending in a team, I was sent in as an independent operative."

"Do you think her plan was for you to not make it back at all?"

"Yes. The compound I needed to infiltrate had already had its self-destruct sequence initiated, and there were some unexpected complications remaining inside."

"We received documentation of your death, and verified it with the agency," Tank said.

"We believed it too," Bobby added.

"Steph didn't. She took a strip off my hide the morning after we received the notification," Lester said.

"Is that true, Babe?"

She looked me in the eyes, and what I saw there made my breath catch. "I would have known if you were dead. I figured that since I still felt you here," she placed her hand over her heart, "that you were still out there somewhere...alive."

I wanted so badly to hold her, to tell her how much I loved her, but it wasn't the time yet. I needed to get the guys out of the apartment, but there were still things that needed to be discussed. Instead, I pulled her close to me and said, "Thank you, for believing in me."

"Always," she said. "Always."

I decided it was time to talk about the hit on Steph, and because I wanted to run my hands through my hair, tightened my arms around her. "What can you tell me about the gas station?" I asked. Steph sat back up and looked at me, then just shook her head relaxing against me. I thought she mumbled something, but I wasn't sure.

"We were heading to a safe house Homeland Security sometimes uses when we took a few bullets while going through the small town. We pulled over at the gas station to check out the damage, and that's when the welcoming committee showed up," Cassidy said.

"The guys were local hoods, could have been hired by anyone," Tank picked up. "All of them had records, small time stuff."

I sat there silently listening to the information as it was detailed, trying to fit the pieces together. I still felt that Tracto wasn't behind the hit on Steph, because had she been, there was no doubt in my mind Steph wouldn't be sitting beside me with her feet tucked under her. "If you were heading to your safe house, how would they have known where to be waiting for you?" I asked Cassidy.

"There was a tracking device on the SUV," he said. "All anyone would have had to do was track me to the SSPD, and then follow us. Once they knew which way we were heading it wouldn't have been hard for them to set up along the possible routes."

"Who do you think might be responsible?" I asked.

"Morelli," Lester and Steph said together. What the hell? The fierceness in the answer left no question of their belief in his guilt.

"You sound sure about that. Why?"

"He came to...visit earlier," Steph began, a cold smile crossing her lips. This was a side of Steph that I always knew was there, but had never really seen. I was beginning to realize that a lot had changed since I'd left. "I guess, he thought since he'd heard of your death, that I would be more amenable to setting up house as his perfect 'Burg clone. Since I wasn't buying what he was selling, he got angry, and as I was walking away brought up the incident at the gas station."

"I'd personally had that scene cleaned up," Cassidy said, "There was no way he could have known about it."

If Morelli was behind the gas station, it was possible that he was behind the hit as well. My muscles tensed and I had to concentrate on deep breathing to rein in the rage that was building inside of me. He claimed to love her, and if he was behind the hit, then she was in a world of danger, because that meant that Morelli had gone off the beaten path, mentally. "Stephanie, while I was out of the country, I stumbled onto some information that, given the circumstances, is even worse than I first imagined," I said.

"What?" she asked.

I decided not to pull any punches and said, "Someone has contracted a hit on you."

"What?" she asked again, this time her voice no louder than a whisper. This wasn't the first time she'd faced danger, and probably wouldn't be her last, but it would still be a shock to anyone's system. I slowly rubbed my hand along her back.

"It was a packet that had American currency as well as several photos of you in it." I'd placed the packet into the pocket of my cargoes before climbing on the helo, and pulled it out now. "Several of the pictures came from Rangeman security cameras."

"The cameras inside the building?" she asked as I handed her the envelope.

"Yes. That's how I realized that there was a leak."

"Man," she muttered, as she flipped through the images. "Couldn't they have gotten any pictures where my hair wasn't impersonating something from the Exorcist?"

Since she'd stumbled into my life, I've realized that she managed nerves and horror in her own way. The fact that she showed her strength in the situation by commenting on the state of her hair caused me to bark out a laugh.

"If they'd done that, they'd still be waiting, Beautiful," Lester said with a laugh. Steph picked up the pillow beside us, and without taking her eyes off the pictures nailed him in the face with it. The room broke out in laughter, and a round of applause at her direct hit.

"Nice job, Babe," I whispered in her ear.

"It's a talent," was her whispered reply. When the room settled down again she asked, "Do you think Morelli is actually responsible for the contract?"

"Yeah, I do," I said.

"I'm going to fucking kill him," She said as she stacked the pictures back together and slid them into the envelope. "I accepted that he was involved in the shootout at the gas station, but to put a contract out on me...is he fucking insane?"

"I don't know his reasons, but we will," I said. I wanted to rub my hands together at the prospect of getting Morelli out of our lives once and for all.

"So, what's the plan then?" Lester asked, his voice filled with enthusiasm. I wasn't the only one who wanted Morelli out of the picture.

"You've got the tracker on Hades, and my guess is that's where Morelli got the pictures. Let's see what he does tonight. We'll keep eyes on him and his girlfriend, and when he comes in tomorrow we'll put him in lockup. We need Hades to roll on Morelli before we can pick him up.

"Until this is taken care of, you need to stay inside. There's still a contract hanging over your head, and I'd like to keep you around a while."

"No prob. I'd like to stick around a while, myself," she said. "But, can we get this finished quickly? I don't enjoy being on lockdown."

"I could make it worth your while," I said, smiling at her.

"Oh, well...ummm, in that case..." she sighed.

"Gentlemen, if you'll excuse us," I said standing up. "You can see yourselves out." I needed to get Steph alone, preferably naked, and preferably wrapped around my cock. After we'd sated our need, we'd talk. It was past time.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do," Santos said, and I heard a smacking sound and grinned. There was muffled talking, and the sound of the front door closing, before there was silence.

Laying her down on my bed, on our bed, I trailed kisses along her jaw to her ear, pausing there and whispering, "Te Amo, Stephanie. Te Amo."