In the dull light of the room, Suzanne is drawn away from the chart that she is reading by the quiet weeps from her second patient. Well, not exactly her second patient, but one that she cares a lot about since he has his own physician. Alexender James Rodgers opens his eyes and wiggles around in the swaddling that encases him, searching for nourishment.

She looks over at the woman who brought this child into the world and sees that she is still sleeping soundly. The last four hours have been very exhausting for both of them. Her son came into this world at 3:22 pm. He weighed six pounds ten ounces, is nineteen and a half inches long, and has a full head of beautiful brown hair. His eyes take after his mothers with small traces of gold placed around his irises.

Suzanne is startled by another quiet voice, that of his big sister.

"How is he? Alexis asked.

"He's doing just fine Alexis." Suzanne answers in a whisper.

"Mom let me hold him for a little before she fell asleep earlier. So, there is no problem with his lungs? I mean are they are okay?"

"Yes, they are developed perfectly. The additional time that your mother was on bed rest gave us the additional time he needed to fully develop them with no complications."

All Alexis could do was smile in return. She was worried that he'd need to be in NICU for a while after he was born, but that turned out not to be the case and for that she is happy.

The sheets rustle next to her and Alexis looks to see her mother looking up at her.

"Hi, sweetie." Kate extends her hand to take her daughter's hand in hers.

"Hey, mom. How do you feel?"

"Baby, I feel great! Nothing could stop how happy I am feeling right now." Kate says as she looks at the isolette parked next to her bedside.

"Not even dad?"

Before Kate can offer a rebuttal Rick chimes in.

"Hey, I'm not that bad! Come on now, I can't have the both of you ganging up on me."

Kate looks at her husband with a loving look and says,

"Babe, look at it this way… you now have another man around, sorta evens up the score two against two."

"Wow, you're right! I never really thought of it that way."

"Kate I really hate to interrupt your family time now, but there is a little man here who's very hungry." Suzanne tells her.

"Suzanne, can you give him to me? And I need some help because I've never done this before."

"No problem Kate. First, remove the flap for your nursing bra."

"Suzanne I'm not wearing a bra." Kate returns shyly.

"All the better. I'm going to take Alex and remove his onesie and he'll be only in his diaper. Studies have shown that skin to skin contact is better for your son, it maintains his temperature and with his clothes off he'll stay alert more to feed.

Suzanne undresses Alex and gives Kate her son and she can tell that Kate will need a lactation specialist to come in and help her with nursing her son.

Alex is fussing a little and before she wants Kate to feel too overwhelmed she tells Kate to get more comfortable on the bed.

"Kate, reposition yourself on the bed, get a little more comfortable for both you and him."

Kate sits up on the bed and gets into a more comfortable position to feed her son.

Suzanne tells her that there are two positions that are good to feed her baby in. The cradle position and the football hold.

"Kate there are two ways to hold your baby when you feed him. The first position is where you place your arm between his legs and hold his head near your breast and with your other hand you position your breast to get him to eat, and the second is to hold him like a football and maneuver his head to your breast in the same fashion."

"I'd like to try the cradle position."

"Okay, take him and get into a comfortable spot."

Suzanne gives Kate Alex and they seem to be okay, at least she is not afraid.

Alex has ideas of his own. He is quick to latch onto Kates' breast and soon he is eating well.

Rick looks on in awe. What he is seeing in front of him is something that is so beautiful and natural.

"Kate when you take him away from his feeding, there will be a tan or brown liquid coming out of your breast. This is colostrum and it's normal. In it are everything your son needs to protect his immune system. It has antibodies and nutrition in it after about the fourth day it will look more like milk." Suzanne tells her.

Just then Rick's phone rings and he steps out to answer it.

"Rodgers." He said.

"Boss, it's Smitty. We have news about the printer bombs that we've found."

"Where are you, Paul?"

"Myself and Lieutenant Kang are down in the disposal yard."

"Is there something I need to be worried about?"

"Not necessarily, but we have something to show you before we detonate this ordinance."

"Okay, I'll be there is about an hour. You're over in the Bronx, right?"

"Yeah. I'll see you when you get here."

Rick ends the call and heads back into Kate's room. She has switched Alex from her left to right breast and he is eating well.

"Dad, you missed it!" His daughter just about shouted and giggled at the same time.

"I did? What did I miss?"

"When mom pulled away Alex to burp him, he let out a very loud one and spit up a little all over mom."

"Well he is a baby, things like this will happen."

"But dad it's a first! He did it here."

"Pumpkin there will be many firsts. Just like there was with you."

Rick really hated to leave this room. But he needed to see that the C-4 was destroyed and he would see that this explosive would harm no one else. As he got into his truck, he took stock in what he had in his life up to this point. He had a loving wife, two children that he would do anything for, and a job that he'd never tire of doing.

"So there he is! Paul shouted out.

"There who is? Rick said as he walked up to Smitty.

"The new father that's who. How does it feel?"

"It's everything I could ever imagine and so much more!" Rick answered honestly.

"How is Kate, Rick?"

"She's a little sore, but I think that she is happy. She wants out of the hospital, and I can't blame her. She's been there for the last couple of weeks and she's tired of the place."

"Soon boss, soon. We're ready to detonate the contraband C-4."

"Okay. How deep is it? And how many charges did you use for the detonation?"

"It's buried just shy of forty feet in the sand surrounded by a ten by ten steel reinforced concrete box and myself and Kang placed six shaped charges to blow in sequence. It should take all of eight seconds." Smitty told him.

"Alright sound the blast warning and get everyone to the bunker we'll do this in five."

Everyone was in the bunker and Rick had his hand on the toggle switch for the controlled detonation. He looked at everyone and each man nodded that they were ready. When he saw Smitty nod, he flipped the toggle switch. The explosion was loud and the sand rose up about ten feet when the explosion happened, but it was nothing that they didn't expect.

"Rick, CSU has finished their report about the origin of the C-4 that was used in these bombs." Paul told him.

"And? What did they find?"

"This won't be easy for you to hear, but they traced this specific C-4 to three separate U.S. Army ammunition depots, that means that there is someone working with these terrorists. Someone who is a traitor."

"Paul, what can we do? All I know is that I don't want to go through something like that again…ever! We can give that report to the upper brass and let them handle it from there. I hate it but our hands are tied. Sure, I'd love to go balls to the wall and take out every one of those sons of bitches, make our world safer, but you and I we are what happens after the destruction has happened. Very rarely do we get to a scene before a bomb detonates."

Paul lowered his head in defeat. He knew Rick was right…

Xx

One year later…

"Happy Birthday dear Alex, happy birthday to you!"

Rick, Kate, Alexis and all of their friends just finished singing to Alex at his first birthday party.

"It amazes me how big he has grown Katie." Her father said.

"Dad it amazes me too. He's already starting to pull himself up with the furniture to try and walk."

"He'll get there. If I remember correctly you did the same thing. But you started walking when you were about 10 months old."

"So are you and Ricky happy with the verdict?"

"Actually, we are. Rick put a lot of work into that case. There was a lot of testimony, a lot of photographic evidence and the fact that they caught him red-handed helped a lot."

"Hey are the two of you talking about me behind my back?" Rick asked as he walked up to his wife and father-in-law.

Jim just raised his hands in surrender. Kate decided to have a little fun with him.

"So what if we were? What are you going to do about it?"

"Oh, I guess I could see if you are actually ticklish, right?" Rick started to move towards Kate in a creeping kind of way with his hands out in front of him imitating lobster pinchers.

"Don't you dare mister! Kate started to run to her safe haven, her daughter, and son she'd use both of them to protect herself from him if need be. By the time she got to where Alex was with his sister she hid behind them. When Rick came across the room a little too quick, Alex looked a little scared that his father was going to attack his mother and doing the only thing he could do by still sitting in his high chair he shouted "NO HURT MAMA"

Everything in the entire room came to a sudden stop. Everyone looked at Alex and could see the tears that were starting to form in his eyes thinking that Rick would hurt his mother.

"Oh Baby, no don't worry! Daddy was only playing around. He won't hurt me, ever." Kate tried to comfort her son and she picked him up out of the high chair. Soon with her comfort he was calm and babbling at everything he saw. Crisis averted.

After Alex had finally came down off his sugar high from eating only the icing on his cake and was sleeping, everyone had left with the exception of her father and Smitty. They all sat down in the living room to talk for a while.

"This is outstanding Rick!" Jim commented.

"Yes, it is. They did a great job. And I have this man to thank for all of it." Rick said pointing to Smitty.

"Rick it was nothing at all." Smitty quietly said.

"It was Paul, it was everything. Without the people you knew, we'd still be living with Jim. There was no way that anyone else could have done the repairs to the loft in the amount of time that they did it in. And they made it so much better!" Rick said.

"Amen to that!" Kate commented remembering how cramped it was living with her dad but grateful that he could put them up.

"Paul the loft has three additional rooms now, plus an upgraded kitchen. A den for Rick and Kate, a bedroom for Alex, a totally remodeled bedroom for Alexis, and a larger living room." Jim said.

Paul looked around and he really was amazed by what his brother had done with the space. The loft had been totally gutted and rebuilt. The bomb that tore through the loft had decimated everything. The city had wanted to condemn the whole building but after his brother had shown them that the building was only damaged on the top floor and the rest of the building was safe, the city inspector had relented. He didn't want to put out five other families out in the cold when there was no need to do so.

Xx

It had taken less than four months of hard work and running down leads with Kate's help and the help of her team who had been assigned to Rick's BDU team, but in the end, the verdict the jury had decided on for the fate of Aashif Kazim had been justified. He would spend the rest of his natural life in an eight by eight prison cell. He has been charged with terroristic acts against the United States. Mainly Title VI of the Patriot Act: Victims and families of victims of terrorism, and War and National Defense Title 50 of the U.S.C. chapter 36 section 1801. During his trial, he had kept silent until his attorney had told him that it looked like he would be going away for a long time. He thought about his current plight and had an idea. He talked with his attorney about giving up other cells of terrorists that operated within the borders of the U.S.

The government who was interested in the information he was offering, told him that they would gladly take his information, but no deal was to be made. It was up to him on how he wanted to proceed so knowing that he was beaten, he gave up over 125 additional suspects. The government having this information decided that taking these people down quickly would be ideal. Between the DOJ, NYPD, State and local Police in various states, three days after they were given the information they raided every address they had. This turned up ninety-two terrorists most of whom were on the terrorist watch list. The government would be busy for quite some time.

"It does look really great, they did an excellent job." Alexis said as she walked into the living room drawing Rick from his thoughts about the verdict. All said and done he was happy with the outcome.

"Alexis, how is Kyle doing?" Kate asked wanting to know how their relationship was going.

"He's okay. He was promoted to store manager last week."

"So this is going somewhere then?" Kate had hoped.

"I think it is. Mom, I really, really like him."

"Honey, are you happy?"

"I am. I feel like I don't deserve him. But time after time he always says something that makes me feel special and then I fall in love with him all over again."

Kate knew that she had found the person whom she wanted to share everything with. Maybe there would be wedding bells in their future….

⁓Fin⁓

A/N: I'd like to thank everyone who has favorited/followed this fic. At first, I really didn't think that there was enough of the first story to write a follow-up. But as you can see there was and I think it came out all right.

P2P