**Author's notes…so the world and characters belong to JE, but I'm borrowing them right now and in my world we'll say this is taking place during the Fall 2013, after Takedown Twenty and Ranger is thirty-five during this tale (which is younger than he probably actually is in TT, but just go with it).**

September 11, 0430

I shouldn't even be awake yet, but here it is, four thirty in the morning and I'm wide awake. I didn't want to bother Stephanie with my restlessness so I pried myself away from her warm body and crawled out of the bed and came down to my office. I figured I'd get my entry out of the way before I go down to the gym. Since today hasn't really started yet I'm going to talk about the feelings I experienced yesterday.

I started out the day in Stephanie's arms. I couldn't really ask for more than that. It was like a happy little cocoon around us in that bed. I wanted to just tell her I loved her and promise her the world, but I knew I'd sound like a prick. I should have done that years ago instead of all the shit I did to her. So I silently held her until it was time to get up.

The rest of the morning seemed to roll by uneventfully as usual. I did the gym, breakfast with Steph, and a meeting with a shop manager over in Princeton. When I got back to the building I went up to seven to check on Steph, but she wasn't there. Her stuff was all there so I went down to five to look for her. You know where I found her?

In Tank's office, sitting shoulder to shoulder with him, smiling and giggling as she worked on something. She'd been so sad and not herself lately I felt bad about my feelings, but I couldn't shut them off. I wanted to snatch her away from him and toss her over my shoulder before escaping to our apartment. Instead, I smiled politely and took her to my office after Tank suggested it. I'm sure he knew I was jealous. I was never sane when it came to her, but jealous of her friendship with my best friend was purely idiotic, still I couldn't shut it off.

Then she put down the shopping bag of clothes that he washed, folded, and returned to her. I looked in there. He had been handling her underpants. How does a man justify handling his best friend's woman's panties? Well I was going to find out just as soon as I had a minute with him. And Stephanie, she tells me that she wasn't just doing his laundry, she was cooking and cleaning, and pretty much playing house with him, for three weeks, while he just kept telling me that she needed to get away for a while, but that she was safe. Safe from what? Me? Un-fucking-believable.

No, you know what was unbelievable? The more I thought about her being up in my apartment, doing homey little things like she had been doing for Tank the more I wanted that for myself. I wanted to come home to her, share meals with her, talk to her, sleep with her. I wanted her to be mine, for real, forever.

I'm not really sure how to even handle that. I know she's not ready for that or to even hear that yet, but I can't let her just think that I'm only doing this because she's sick. I've been teetering on the edge of her life, stuck somewhere between being a part-time lover and being vanquished to the friend-zone and I didn't want to be there anymore, but I didn't know how to go about shifting things.

I tried my best last night to let her know that I love her and care about her. It wasn't hard to spend time with her. The simplicity of dinner, a game, and a movie seems silly, but I liked spending that time with her. I liked being able to hold her regardless of how stupid the movie was, which I am going to kick Brown's ass for that one by the way, asshole. Still, I was greedy and I wanted more. I wanted her to know that I loved her and wanted her. Maybe there was even a part of me that wanted to lay claim to her over my friends. So I asked her if I could kiss her.

As soon as my lips touched hers I knew I had been stupid all day. There was no way she had feelings for Tank or Lester. We still had the magic we always did. I also didn't want her to think I was coming onto her so I didn't escalate the kiss. I just kissed her and tried to let her know how much she meant to me with my actions.

When we finally got in bed she was all covered up, neck to toes in sweat pants. I think that crazy part of my brain started to short circuit. I needed to feel her against me. Without asking her permission I pulled her pants off of her and pulled her body against mine. I immediately realized what I had done and silently cursed myself for rushing again, but she didn't seem to mind. Then she asked if she could take her tee shirt off too. She didn't have to ask me twice. Steph has a beautiful body, just being able to hold her and touch her without a barrier between us gave me a sense of comfort that I'd never found anywhere but with her.

Thanks to her, I think last night may have been the first time I'd slept through the night on this day in, well the last decade at least. How she makes me forget my demons and feel like a normal man I have no idea. I knew it was selfish to take from her when she was hurting, but I needed her last night. I need her today even more.

It's September eleventh, a day of remembrance for our country for so many different reasons. For me it was always a day of reflection.

Twelve years ago our country officially went to war against the terrorists that attacked our country. I was just finishing Ranger's school, yet to be assigned to a specific unit and yet to be sent into battle. I thought I was brave and tough and king shit, for making it through training and earning my beret. It turned out I hadn't earned shit yet.

The years that followed were some of the toughest of my life. There are no words to describe the horrors of war, but they are images that you'll never be able to wipe from your mind. The men I traveled with became my family. I had to trust them to have my back as much as they had to trust me. As those men fell around me, losing their lives to the battles we were fighting I figured I'd end up like so many of my brothers, buried at Arlington.

I didn't die though. I lived, through every one of their deaths, through every death I inflicted upon our enemy, and through every innocent life I had to take in order to take out the enemy.

As a soldier you have no choice but to follow the orders that you were given. As a ranger we were sometimes given orders that weren't even in the books. I was assigned to a group that did a lot of black ops missions, the shit the government didn't want their names attached to. My part in the group was as a tracker and scout. I was like a fucking bloodhound on a scent. I always found our mark. I would lead the rest of the group in so they could do what they needed to do.

I'm not saying I was any better than the men I served with, but I wasn't the hardened killer that some of them were, to begin with. I was damaged by all I'd seen and done though. I knew I'd never live a normal life if I even lived to see the end of that fucking war.

I had a wife and baby at home that I knew I'd never be able to give a life to. I never loved Rachel that way, she was a one night stand that went wrong. The baby, Julie, I only saw once before I got the adoption papers in the mail. I didn't hesitate to give her away, she deserved better than me. They both did.

I realized then that I really was nothing. I found myself drinking and taking drugs to try to get through what I had to see each day. Each day it ate away at me a little more until I was a shell of the person I used to be.

By the time my tour was nearly complete I realized I was a fucking monster. I came to love the hunt. I celebrated in our enemy's blood. I pissed on their bodies and laughed at their cries of fear. I stood guard watching as some of the men fucked the innocent women before killing them too, we couldn't leave witnesses. It wasn't like I was too good to help rape the women, but the amount of drugs I was on had made me virtually impotent. The children were shot or burned alive before my eyes and I felt nothing. I was nothing.

I finally tried to take my own life after we made it back to camp. I was going to be out of the Army in another two weeks, but there was nothing waiting for me on the other side. There was only this never ending hell we called war. I took all the drugs in my bag. I was so fucked up by that point I couldn't even load my gun, but I could get to my knife so I slashed my wrists that night. It was only by sheer luck that a man I was friends with happened to walk behind the rock I was hidden behind.

At the time I was pissed at him for saving me, but now I'm glad that he gave me the second chance for a life. I don't think he ever stopped worrying about me trying to do something like that again. Even to this day he looks out for me like a fucking mother hen. Apparently now that mothering extends to Stephanie as well.

After I came home, I checked myself into a private hospital for mental duress. I was detoxed and sent for therapy. That's where I met Dr. Ben Westin originally. At the time he was working out of Newark, my hometown. I did get clean and have lived as cleanly as possible since.

It took a good year before I was fit to socialize with my family though. Even after all the therapy I didn't feel like I belonged with them anymore. I know they still wish for me to be Ric, the kid that left home, but he died a long time ago. In his place grew Ranger, at least that's what they called me on the streets now.

I didn't have any friends that weren't in the military, those people I didn't want in my life anymore. How could they understand? I knew I was rotting on the inside even if I was all shiny on the outside now. I had no idea how to function in the civilian world. I knew I'd never be normal.

So I decided to do the only thing I was ever good at. Hunting. I took a job as a bounty hunter and I was fucking great at it, so good that I was eventually contracted by the government to hunt down criminals. When Tank was done with his tour he found me, probably making sure I didn't go through with offing myself. I don't know why, but he never left me after that. We became partners, hunting down the slime of society.

The government eventually moved me into Trenton. There was a rash of crimes stemming from street gangs. It wasn't hard for me to mask myself as Street Ranger. Tank became my shadow here, always at my back. It did nothing but improve the tough persona that I needed to stay alive on the streets. I was able to take out a few of the key players in the gangs ending that particular job for the government, but I liked Trenton. No one knew me here as anything besides Ranger. There were no expectations of me, hell, people usually didn't even bother me.

They were scared of the tough, thug image we created so I was left in peace for the most part. I took a civilian job as a bounty hunter for Vincent Plum Bail Bonds. I worked myself up to being their top guy, bringing in only the very high level skips. Between the money I earned bounty hunting privately and federally and the side jobs I started to take for the government doing some tracking, I was rolling in dough.

Tank and I decided we needed to do something with our lives, something to give back to the community. I always thought of it as the only thing that could redeem me from the hell I'd inflicted on others in the name of war. We started a company, cleaning up neighborhoods. We eliminated the bad apples doing what Stephanie likes to refer to as redecorating jobs. We got rid of drug dealers. We brought in felons. It was all the right thing to do for the good people of Trenton, but I needed more.

We brought in a few more guys, friends Tank and I had made in the rangers. They were good guys, not the black ops team that I was shackled with. Santos and Brown were the first to join us, though later we expanded, bringing in a crew that now looks like an army of its own. Business had been good to us. I'm financially comfortable now. Hell, I think I even have the respect of the city.

Personally I guess I came to terms with the mistakes I'd made in the past. I'm not saying that I'm not still haunted by the ghosts, but it's become less frequent as the years pass. With the help of Dr. Westin I can say the days of nightmares and flashbacks are mostly over. I know there is nothing I can do to change what I've done, but by doing what I think is morally right now, even if it's a hard decision, I can live for myself and my own code of honor. I only hoped that by being true to myself it would redeem me in the eyes of God somehow, someday.

I've prayed to Him so many times for a second chance at life. To be able to fix whatever is still broken inside of me, but no matter how clean I live, no matter how many criminals I take off the street, no matter how many people's lives I've saved, and no matter how much money I've made, I still feel incomplete.

The only time I've ever felt alive or at peace has been when I'm with Stephanie. I know it's not fair to her to bring my mental baggage into a relationship. Shit, in the past I've felt like just by touching her I've soiled her somehow. Maybe I'm greedy or I'm still the monster that I once was, because I can't walk away from her or give her up no matter how much I keep hurting her.

Now for the first time in my life she is in my bed and she needs me. She doesn't need the shell of a man I was in the past, she needs me to be whole. She needs the loving, caring man I know is buried somewhere inside me. I can still feel him when she's around. I just need to resurrect something I tried to kill years ago, my soul.

So maybe instead of going down to the gym I'll crawl back into the bed and hold my Babe in my arms. I'll try to figure out a way to spend this day doing something good instead of wallowing in the past. She was my future and I need to start showing her that. I need to let her into my life no matter how ugly it is. I need to show her I really love her.