A/N: Thanks to everyone who had been hoping for a Babe for your kind words when you realized it wouldn't be going that direction. I hope if you've stuck around that you'll enjoy the rest of the story.

And FFN has finally gotten its email alerts fixed, so be sure if you haven't seen anything from me for a while that you go back to chapter 4 (the first I posted after the email system stopped working).

September 21, 2011

Julio's mouth on the back of my neck roused me from sleep. I smiled into my pillow as he kissed his way down my spine, making small circles with his tongue between kisses as he moved down each vertebra.

"Is this a new form of wake-up call?" I asked, looking over my shoulder at him once he had reached my tailbone. He grinned at me, squeezing my ass as he sat back on his knees.

"Just for you," he said. He nudged my legs apart with his knees and lifted my hips, entering me at an agonizingly slow pace. The moan that escaped me was from both pleasure and frustration, and I pushed back against him impatiently. That elicited a chuckle from him.

"Patience, baby," he whispered, his mouth at my ear. "We've got all day."

I lost myself in the sensations of his chest pressed against my back and his muffled moans against my neck as he moved inside me. I'd missed him and would miss him even more once I had to leave, knowing it would be almost winter before I could be with him again. I would deploy at the end of June and wouldn't return until early November, meaning we would be limited to Skype calls and emails. I pushed that depressing fact out of my mind and returned my focus to the present as Julio started moving faster, one of his hands sliding around to stroke me. I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt so good. I was close, and I could tell he was too. But just as I was about to finish, my alarm started ringing.

"Why did you set an alarm?" Julio asked breathlessly and clearly annoyed.

I was just about to tell him I hadn't when the sensations shifted from sensual and pleasant to the unwelcome coolness of reality. I reached over and turned off the alarm on the bedside table but refused to open my eyes. I wanted to stay in those memories with him rather than face the light of what promised to be a bad day.

Julio and I had seen each other for the first time since New Year's over the four-day Memorial Day weekend. I had flown to El Paso, and we spent the weekend at an Airbnb on the northwest side of the city. It had been glorious, made even better by a surprise Julio had been teasing me with for a week. He had grinned like an idiot the entire drive from the airport, insisting that he'd tell me once we were at the house.

"I'm getting transferred to Bragg," he said almost as soon as the door closed behind us. "I report for duty September sixth."

Fort Bragg was in North Carolina, which meant he would be significantly closer to me at Fort Benning. Could we really be that lucky?

"If you're joking, I'm going to beat your ass," I told him.

"Not a joke," he said, grabbing the front of my shirt to pull me close. "And I already mapped it out. We'll be 492 miles apart. The halfway point is Augusta, Georgia, which keeps us both under the 250-mile limit, so we won't need weekend passes whenever we want to see each other," he said, smiling proudly at his efforts.

Bam!

The sound of a slamming door somewhere nearby forced my eyes open and the memory of that wonderful weekend from my mind. I blew out a sigh and sat up on the edge of the bed. It was 0540, and I had an important meeting at 0700. I had just enough time to get showered and dressed. Food would have to wait. I didn't want to retell the events of the previous day on a full stomach.

My advanced knowledge of missions had paid off more times than I could count in the last five years. This had been the first time I'd used that knowledge to aid a mission I hadn't been part of last time, and the results had been even more disastrous than the original event.

"Have a seat, Sergeant Manoso," Lieutenant Colonel Jacob Rees said when I entered the conference room at the appointed time. I sat down in a chair directly across the table from him and Captain Peter Black. None of us gave anything away in our expressions.

Rees slid a file folder across the table along with a legal pad and pen. "Here is the initial report of what happened yesterday. It's a broad overview and we're looking for more details from the men who were on the ground. Once we've gone over it, you'll need to provide a written account."

"Yes, sir."

I opened the folder and read through the one-page summary. He hadn't been kidding when he said it was a broad overview. A dozen bullet points filled the page providing the most basic timeline of events.

"Start from the beginning," Rees said, clicking his own pen open to take notes. Black followed his lead. "How did your unit end up joining the teams from the 3rd Battalion on the raid of the Al-Mufti compound when you were here for recon on Tawfiq Saad and his lieutenants?"

Well, sir, I died and was sent back to relive my life. I thought I could help save lives on this mission and inadvertently got even more people killed.

"We had anticipated needing two weeks to gather the necessary intel on Saad, but my instinct not to blindly trust the CIA's informant helped," I began, pushing my guilt into a box for the time being. "He tried to withhold important information from me, and I wouldn't have realized it for several days had I not followed him around the day before the meet. That allowed us to move in on Saad's safe house and set up surveillance less than twelve hours later. We got what we needed within five days and were able to report the findings."

The man's deceit in my last life had resulted in four days wasted on dead ends. I'd caught up to him on the fifth day, grabbed him by the throat and told him that if he didn't give me all the information in the next five minutes, the CIA would need to find a new rat.

Rees nodded and both he and Black spent a minute writing. "Who requested your unit's assistance with the raid? And what reason did they cite for it?"

"Lieutenant Weir, sir. He said he preferred extra men on the ground given the remote location of the compound. It would take twenty minutes for any back-up to arrive, and he wanted to have as much support as possible."

"What were you told was the purpose of the mission and how much time did your unit have to prepare?"

"We had thirty-six hours prep time, sir. We were told a meeting was being held between Asad Al-Mufti and six other regional Taliban leaders and the mission was to eliminate all targets".

Black opened a different, thicker file and started reading from it. "Tell me about the members of your unit. Not just their roles, but how you function as a team."

I was being tested, both for loyalty and honesty. "We're a cohesive unit, sir. Staff Sergeant Smith is the squad leader. He's fair, takes feedback and considers it before making a call. Sergeant Robert Kinsey and I are the team leaders. I have Specialists Orin Carr and Matthew Harper on my team, and Kinsey has Corporal Pierre Montgomery and Specialist Kevin Morgan on his. We all put our individual skill sets to use and support each other where we can. We communicate well and know each other well enough to instinctually know what everyone needs. I trust every man in this unit to have my back just as I have theirs."

I waited while they took more notes, read things in files, and muttered quietly to one another, occasionally pointing out something on paper. Every man in my unit would go through the same interview and would provide roughly the same story, though our varied positions would provide different details.

"Moving ahead to the assault on the Al-Mufti compound, detail your unit's movements and roles starting from the time you arrived," Rees said after a minute of discussion.

"Our roles were to be visual supports and move into direct action if necessary. We had positioned ourselves at various points around the compound. Montgomery and I were to the north, Kinsey and Carr to the east, Morgan and Smith on the south, and Harper on the west. Smith is our geospatial engineer, and he was studying the satellite imagery and other photographs of the compound and comparing it to what we were seeing in real time. He immediately pointed out changes in the northwestern side of the compound and wanted a real time aerial visual. Montgomery sent up a drone and captured footage of the area Smith had noticed. Smith had just radioed Captain Marlow to say there was something large being concealed in the northwest corner when the attack started."

"Approximately how many Taliban fighters did you observe firing on the platoon?"

"Twelve to fifteen," I estimated. "They had strategically parked their vehicles around the compound so they could turn on their headlights and use the time we needed to adjust to their advantage. Smith ordered us to keep on visual supports until Marlow said otherwise. And that's what we did for the next hour."

I hadn't been worried at that point. I'd been confident that our presence providing additional visual support would help prevent most, if not all, the casualties.

"At what point did Captain Marlow order your unit to engage in direct action?" Rees asked.

"The fighting had been going on for approximately forty-five minutes when Kinsey radioed that there was a man wearing an explosive vest coming out of a gate on the southeastern side. It gave the men in that area time to pull back enough to avoid the blast radius. We heard over the radio that a couple of men were hit on the west side of the compound, so Marlow had Harper leave his location and head towards the compound to provide support. I relocated to Harper's previous position and continued providing visual supports from the west."

Rees jotted notes and Black put down his pen long enough to drink some coffee. I waited patiently while they both reviewed files and their own notes. I was glad I hadn't eaten breakfast. My stomach felt like I'd swallowed every bullet that had been fired in the fight.

"When did someone suggest calling for backup?" Black inquired, flicking his eyes between me and the file in front of him. "And who was the first person to make the suggestion?"

I thought back to the chaos of the night. We had taken out four of the dozen or so fighters, not counting the first suicide bomber. A second suicide bomber emerged from a tunnel on the northern side and had injured a half dozen men because Tank hadn't been able to see him soon enough for the men to retreat. It has been at that point that Marlow ordered us all down to the action and we had run in to support our fellow Rangers.

"It was after the second suicide bomber, which was approximately ninety minutes into the fight. I was on the ground with Harper and four others on the west side. We heard over the radio that two more Taliban had been hit, but three of them had retreated into the compound. I heard Smith say something about back up on the radio, but Marlow didn't respond. A few minutes later one of the men came back out with an RPG and started firing to the south. The other two had taken positions on the second floor and were firing to the north and west. That was when Marlow made the call for backup."

"What happened during the eighteen minutes between the radio call for backup and the Chinook's call that they were one minute out?"

"More of the same. We took out another two Taliban and they send out a third bomber, but his vest failed, and he was shot instead. That left about five fighters in the compound."

"What happened when the Chinook reported its location?" Rees asked, putting his pen down and steepling his fingers in front of him.

"Marlow didn't have time to respond before the fighters with the RPGs launched them at the helicopter. The two of the three hit and we saw the chopper crash about 300 yards from the compound."

"Did anyone warn the helicopter that there were RPGs?"

"I believe that was Marlow's intention, but he never got the chance. The fighters in the compound seemed to know their location as soon as we learned it. But it was their distraction of shooting down the chopper that gave us the final advantage we needed to subdue the rest of the group. Marlow ordered his team into the compound and my unit was sent to the chopper to look for any survivors."

I would never forget the sight of the broken Chinook lying in the open field and the bodies of the men strewn around it. There had been fourteen Navy SEALS and three airmen onboard. Even in the dark, we knew they were all dead without touching them. Some of them were intact, others were in pieces. We'd waited in silence for the Pathfinder team to arrive to secure the site before we were able to go back to help secure the compound.

"Do you have anything else to add to the timeline, Sergeant?" Black asked somberly once he had finished writing.

"No, sir."

I was made to repeat the timeline twice and was dismissed once I'd written out my statement and made my way back to my room. I needed a long run on the treadmill to clear my head. The SEALs had also been at the FOB with us and several of their colleagues were still here. They had been briefed on the mission should they need to come in to support us and we had interacted with them over the last couple of weeks since their arrival. I'd been confident that we wouldn't need them. My limited knowledge of the incident seemed enough to get us through it mostly intact. I'd truly believed it would work out better.

I was so lost in my thoughts while I ran that I almost missed the fact that I was feeling nauseous. I looked down at the treadmill and saw I'd been running for close to two hours at a faster pace than I would have usually taken. I hadn't eaten in twelve hours and could tell I was slightly dehydrated from the strenuous work out and high elevation. I turned the treadmill off and walked over to a water cooler, drinking while slowly pacing to cool down. I refilled my cup twice before I felt better and headed to my room to change back into my uniform before going to the dining hall for lunch. I would force myself to eat, if only to keep my body functioning while my brain figured itself out.

The mood around the FOB was respectfully somber. All the major news outlets had reported on the crash and the families of the dead had been notified. The Pentagon would release the names publicly in a few days, giving the families time to grieve privately before reporters hounded them with requests for comments or interviews. I found Kinsey, Tank, and Smith sitting at a table in the corner of the dining hall after grabbing my food.

"Did you have your interview yet?" Kinsey asked me as I took a seat.

"Spent two hours telling them the same story three times and then had to write it out."

All three nodded. They'd been through the same process.

"I think they were listening to our comms," Tank commented. "They knew where the chopper was as soon as they radioed through to us."

"It was a set up," Smith said. "There wasn't a meeting. None of the men we found in the compound were on the list of targets. And Al-Mufti wasn't anywhere near the place."

I had come to the same conclusion, which had been another blow to my morale. I'd known very few details about the mission from my last life because I hadn't been involved. The news had reported on it, but not to the same extent, so there hadn't been as many public details available. A helicopter full of Navy SEALs being shot down was more dramatic than a few Rangers being killed in a fire fight. That happened all the time. The fact that it had been a set-up hadn't been public knowledge. I had assumed like everyone else that it had just been bad luck. No matter how good we were and how much we trained, we were only human and could still make mistakes or get caught off-guard. I'd failed to consider that I didn't have all the crucial information. Instead, I operated under the belief that my knowledge and the unit's involvement could improve the circumstances. Smith had been the one to push for the backup call, which wouldn't have happened had we not been there.

"Hopefully tonight goes better," I said, thinking of the mission we had been prepping for three days. At least I knew this intel was legitimate.

"The mission got pushed," Smith said. "I just got the news before I came in here. The forecast is calling for a severe thunderstorm with heavy rain. It may be a few more days before we can act on it."

We finished our lunch in relative silence. None of us were talkative at the best of times, and this wasn't the best of times. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was almost 1300. "Gotta go. Have a call to make."

I headed back to my room and pulled out my laptop, thankful I'd paid for the faster wi-fi service. I didn't want to deal with constant connection issues today. Julio and I hadn't been able to Skype for almost three weeks between my mission schedule and his move to North Carolina. I needed to talk to him today more than ever.

"Hey, baby," Julio said once Skype connected us. He was shirtless and sitting up in bed, clearly having just woken up. "I missed you."

"I've missed you too," I said. "How's Bragg treating you?"

"Not bad. It's fucking huge compared to Bliss, but I like that. More to do and more people to meet."

A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. Of course he loved the idea of having more people to meet. Julio had never met a stranger. I loved that about him, even if the idea of wanting to talk to other people was alien to me.

"How's the clinic?" I asked, and Julio spent the next ten minutes telling me about his work in the pediatric rehabilitation clinic on base. Julio loved kids and they loved him back, so it was hardly work for him. Watching his face light up and hearing the enthusiasm in his voice was exactly what I needed. I let his voice wash over me like holy water, hoping it would cleanse me and heal some of my pain.

"You okay?" he asked after a while. "I heard about that helicopter crash."

"I made it worse," I said. It took him a second to realize what I meant, then his eyes widened in surprise.

"Damn," he whispered. "But you couldn't have known."

"I was arrogant. I didn't have all the information."

"You had to try," he said. "You would have been beating yourself up if you hadn't."

"Now I have to live with the guilt. It's like Rachel all over again."

"And your intentions were good both times."

"I'm like a one-man crew paving the road to hell," I said. "It'll be a six-lane highway by the time I die."

"It sucks, and I know it's hard, but you gotta keep your head in the game. I'm not losing you because you're too distracted feeling guilty and get yourself killed," Julio said sternly.

"I'll be fine. Being on a mission helps. It takes my mind off everything else because I'm laser-focused on the job."

"You'd better be. No daydreaming about my ass while you're hunting down a terrorist cell," he replied with a wink.

"I actually did dream about you last night," I told him. "I was remembering how good I felt Memorial Day weekend."

"Once you're back, we'll get to feel that way more often. It'll be easier now that we don't have to hide it anymore."

I had been so caught up in the mission details I'd forgotten that Don't Ask, Don't Tell had officially ended yesterday. I closed my eyes and leaned back against the wall. At least that was one thing off my platter of worries.

"Now we just have to tell our parents," I said. "I'm not looking forward to telling my mother I'm bisexual and dating a man. I don't know what to expect from my father. He's not religious. He's never been one to fall into the toxic parts of machismo, and he tends to side with my mother on things just to keep the peace, but he'll stand his ground if it's important to him."

We were planning to tell our parents about our relationship while visiting for Thanksgiving. Now that Julio was in North Carolina, he was close enough to his sister Layla in Virginia that he could go up for the four-day holiday weekend. His mother and other two sisters would also be there. I would be in Miami with my parents and Grandma Isabela. Grandma Rosa would be visiting her sister in California, and my siblings would be with their respective in-laws.

"I don't give a shit what Dad thinks, but the girls think Mom will take it well. I hope they're right," Julio said with a yawn.

"It would probably help if you would admit to being bisexual," I said. "You'll just confuse her with your straight with an asterisk bullshit."

Julio rolled his eyes. "Not this again."

"Why is it you could admit to being in love with me in high school, but accepting that you're bisexual in your mid-twenties is when you choose to be in denial?" I asked.

"Because I'm not bisexual. I don't like any other men," he argued. "I like women, and you. That means I'm straight, and the asterisk is there to say except for Carlos Manoso."

"Only being attracted to me doesn't make you any less bisexual. That would imply that you can't be straight unless you're attracted to all women."

Julio glared at me. We had this conversation every couple of months. I would push him to accept it, and he would stay rooted in his stubbornness.

"I'm not bisexual," he said again.

"Should I take that to mean we aren't having sex anymore? The bi in bisexual stands for two, women and men."

Julio looked like he might throw his computer across the room. "Damn it, Carlos. Why do you care so much about this?"

"Because it sounds like you're ashamed of your feelings for me," I admitted. "While I'm prepared to lose relationships with people I love to be with you."

"I'm not ashamed of us!" he shot back, clearly annoyed. "You were the one who was ashamed of your feelings for years!"

"Yes, I was, but I'm not anymore. Admitting that I was in love with you and wanted to be with you also came with accepting that I'm bisexual. If I weren't, I wouldn't be with you."

Julio stared off into the room behind the computer screen. "You know what people say though. They think being bisexual just means you're in denial about being gay. Do you want people assuming you're gay?"

"I don't care if they do. I'm in a relationship with a man, so it isn't an unfounded assumption. It doesn't bother me because I plan to be with you the rest of my life, so my attraction to women is moot at this point. Why does it matter if people think you're gay, unless you're hoping to be with a woman again one day?"

"You know I only want you," he muttered.

We sat quietly for a couple of minutes while Julio processed our conversation. Maybe it wasn't fair of me to push him on it, but it was important to me to know he was as committed as I was, and accepting his sexuality was part of that.

"I didn't know Mom had a brother until I told Nora about us," he began. "He was ten years older than her. He came out to my grandparents once they'd left Morocco and were living in Chicago. They refused to have anything to do with him after that. Cut him off financially and even stopped talking about him. He died from AIDS right before I was born. His name was Mohammed. Mom named me after him." Julio bit down on his lower lip and sniffed. "Even if my mom isn't thrilled, I know she won't turn me away like that. But I'm afraid they will, and I don't wanna lose them."

I was prepared for the possibility of losing relationships with my parents and Grandma Rosa. It would hurt, and I would miss them, but I could go on with my life. Julio was a different story. He had struggled with abandonment issues for as long as I'd known him, not surprising after Jaime left the family when he was ten, and then his mother sent him to live in Miami after he got in trouble a few years later. He admitted to me a while ago that it had been part of his drinking problem. He had since repaired his relationship with his mother, accepting that it had been a difficult decision for her to make, but she had done it out of love. He also acknowledged that it had been the best thing for him. Not just because it kept him out of trouble, but because we found each other. But despite his protests otherwise, I knew he cared very much what his father thought. I was pretty sure that after his relationship with me, the thing he wanted most was Jaime's love and approval. He'd been crushed when his paternal grandmother had developed dementia and couldn't remember him anymore. Losing his only living grandparents would be devastating.

"You should have told me. I wouldn't have pushed so hard."

Julio shook his head. "I needed it. I've been trying not to freak out about it, but I just found out they're coming to Thanksgiving. James' family is just coming on Thanksgiving Day, so I wasn't going to tell Mom until Friday or Saturday so dinner wouldn't be weird. I could try to tell her away from them, but she's a bad liar, and they'd know something was up."

"You don't have to tell them about me," I said. "Or you can just pretend I'm a woman. I don't care, babe. I just want to be with you, and I want you to be happy. We'll figure it out."

Julio shook his head again. "You're willing to lose people to be with me," he said. "I need to be prepared to do the same thing. It'll hurt like hell but losing you would be worse. I don't want you think I'm ashamed of us and that I'll decide to leave you for a woman someday just so my grandparents will talk to me again."

"Babe, I know that isn't true. I shouldn't have said it."

"It's okay. I can do this," he said with a smile. "But I'm gonna need you to be real nice to me afterwards."

"Done."

We talked for a few more minutes until Julio had to start getting ready for work. I closed my laptop feeling better than I had when we'd started talking.

Naturally, I'd had no idea that the mission would turn out so badly, but I would still carry the guilt of my role in the loss of those seventeen people for the rest of my life. It seemed like my efforts to eliminate the reasons I felt guilty last time were now just creating different reason in this life. Like Grandma said, the universe has a way of wanting to keep some things the same. I guess the universe intended to keep that albatross firmly around my neck.

A/N: The mission Ranger discussed is based on a real mission that happened in 2011, where a helicopter with 38 people and one working dog was shot down arriving at a remote location with the Rangers and all were onboard were killed.