Spring Cleaning
by myamanda
Timeline: Marriage is common knowledge, Amanda & Lee are still partners
Disclaimer: All characters are property of Shoot the Moon, no infringement is intended.
Summary: A family tradition takes a mysterious turn.
Spring 1992
Chapter 1
Tradition.
Ritual.
Bah.
Not that Lee didn't love being a part of this family--far from it. And he was always willing to do his share of work around the house. He considered himself a 90's man; he even did a load of laundry every now and then. But THIS--this was...
A bathroom.
A dirty bathroom.
Hands on hips, he surveyed the battlefield before him.
"How bad could it be?" he asked, his voice echoing off the tile.
He'd been a little wary when Amanda had rallied the entire family in the kitchen that morning. The boys' groans when she'd hefted a jar full of paper slips onto the counter further assured him that this was bad, very bad indeed.
He had the same reaction to Spring Cleaning at the Agency, too, but this was the real thing. And far more treacherous, at least to Lee.
They had each blindly chosen a task from the jar, and Lee's futile attempts to bribe Jamie to trade his "Master Bath" for "Rake the Yard" were intercepted by his wife. "Oh, no you don't, Stetson. You picked it, it's your responsibility. Master Bath. Cleaning supplies are in the upstairs hall closet. Get busy." At his pathetic look back, she'd only swatted his behind with her broom.
"How have I been so lucky to miss out on this before?" he called on his way up the stairs.
Amanda's head had popped around the corner into the stairwell.
"I think you were in Istanbul last year, and maybe Germany the year before that..." her nose wrinkled in thought.
"And now, here I am," he said to his reflection, which was also wearing an old green sweatshirt and faded jeans. "Lee Stetson, international spy, master of intrigue...cleaning a bathroom in Arlington. Good use of my skills."
With a weary smile he decided he might as well get it over with. Picking up a large white bottle of generic bleach, he reached down to plug the bathtub. Glopping the thick liquid into the tub, he dropped to his knees and began to scrub.
Much as he now hated to admit it, as a bachelor it would never have occurred to him to clean the bathtub. Didn't it get clean when you took a bath, with all the soap and stuff?
Remembering the look on Amanda's face when he had asked her that question so many years before, he stepped up the scrubbing.
Running some hot water into the tub, he noticed that some of the grayish-white stuff was still more gray than white, and there were some orangey-colored stains near the drain. Hmm. Adding more bleach didn't seem to help. Perplexed, he reached around to grab another bottle of cleanser, and added it to the mix.
"A-ha!" he thought, mentally proclaiming victory over the enemy. Adding a little more from the second bottle, he was extremely pleased when the mixture began to bubble and fizz, surely removing even the most stubborn...
And his world went black.