It had been a long day, trying to get everything back into place at the Agency after Operation Possum. Despite Billy's orders that everything be up and running by the end of the day, he'd sent everyone but a skeleton staff home that evening leaving boxes piled beside desks and a bullpen that only barely had order. Everyone had done their best but the upheaval of going to ground had exhausted them and once there was enough back up and running to keep them functioning overnight, Billy had been glad to kick back on the couch in his office with a glass of scotch, head dropped back against the wall and feet up on the coffee table.

The light tap on the door frame made him open his eyes blearily, to find Lee leaning on the doorframe, grinning at him.

"Shouldn't you be going home too, boss? I would have thought you'd want to be kicking back somewhere comfortable after a few days tied up in a coffin."

Billy chuckled and gestured to him to help himself to the bottle on the desk. "I sent Jeanie and the girls back home to Chicago when I thought there was a possibility Washington was going to be blown off the map. So I'll be headed off soon, but there's nothing worse than going home to an empty house." He stopped and shook his head. "Sorry, I wasn't thinking."

Lee had poured himself a glass now and lowered himself into a chair opposite, waving it off. "You get used to it," he remarked. "It's nice to leave here and not have to be around anyone else – nobody depending on you, nobody expecting anything from you."

"Still pretending you're a lone wolf, Scarecrow?" Billy sighed.

"No pretending here," Lee shrugged. "I like being alone."

"I'd find that easier to believe if you hadn't gone off to find Amanda the minute you got home," said Billy pointedly.

"That's different!" said Lee heatedly. "I went to make sure she was okay, that's all, since she wouldn't know what was going on. And then, it occurred to me I might need some backup, so I, uh, brought her along."

"For good luck. I get it." Billy was nodding with mock seriousness.

"Well it was lucky for you I did," Lee went on, still on the defensive. "If Yuri hadn't been able to hypnotise her, we might never have tracked Kreschenko to that funeral home and found you."

"Oh I'm not saying it wasn't a good idea," Billy couldn't contain his chuckles. "But honestly, I mean, that's small potatoes compared to her blue wire theory of nuclear disarmament."

There was silence for a few seconds before both men started to laugh uncontrollably. Lee was the first to get back under control, wiping the tears of mirth from his eyes. "You know, that's the second time she's been around while I tried to disarm a ticking bomb – I can't decide if she's bad luck or the lucky charm that helps stop it from being worse."

"Well, you know what I think," said Billy, taking another sip of his Scotch.

"Oh yes – you've made yourself crystal clear on that topic many times," said Lee sarcastically.

"You know what I really don't understand?" said Billy. "How easy Yuri found it to hypnotise her in the first place. From your description, she just slipped under with no problem at all."

"She really did," answered Lee. "Which was pretty funny considering how certain she was that he wouldn't be able to do it." He pointed one of the fingers wrapped around his glass at Billy. "That should probably be in her file if you think it's such a good idea to keep training her."

"Well, that's just it," Billy answered thoughtfully. "I know why she was so certain. She's been doing all sorts of in-house tests while you were away and Dr. Quidd swears up and down he couldn't get her hypnotised. He remarked on it in his daily briefing."

"Well, if she's anything like me, it'll be because Quidd gives her the creeps," Lee shrugged. "Maybe she's not comfortable letting him that close."

"But she was comfortable letting a Russian agent put her under?" Billy scowled briefly. "You might be right about her unsuitability if that's true."

"Oh come on, Billy! I like Yuri better than Quidd too – that doesn't mean I'm going to play for the wrong side!" Lee snapped.

Billy lifted a brow, resisting comment as he enjoyed the way Lee had gone from pointing out Amanda's faults to defending in her in a matter of seconds. "Well, maybe it was easier because she knew it was important," he said slowly.

"Exactly!" Lee glared at him for a moment as if he'd suddenly discerned Billy was laughing at him, before suddenly asking, "Wait a minute - what kind of in-house tests?"

"Oh nothing serious. Just some more of the basics following up on Station One; self defense, gun range, that kind of thing."

Lee sat bolt upright, almost spilling his drink. "Gun range? Are you kidding me?"

"Yeah, that one didn't go so well," admitted Billy. "But the other stuff has been fine – no need for you to worry."

"I wouldn't be worried if someone had bothered to keep me informed about what my partner was doing," groused Lee.

"If you'll recall, you were on a classified, zero contact mission for the last three weeks, Scarecrow. Made it hard to keep you informed about the administrative details on your partner." Billy enjoyed the flush that rose on Lee's cheek at the way he emphasized that word, pointing out as it did Lee's inadvertent slip. "You signed off on her doing more training so I don't see why you're complaining. And now that you're back, you can supervise all of that as much as you want."

Lee tilted his head, giving him a quizzical look while he tried to decide if he'd just been assigned something bad. In the face of an unusually inscrutable Billy, he finally knocked back the last swig of scotch and stood up. "Fine. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Oh Amanda, there you are. I've been looking for you all morning."

Amanda's heart sank at the oily tone of Dr. Quidd's voice behind her. She didn't know what it was about the guy but something about him gave her the heebie-jeebies. His smile never reached his eyes, and there always seemed to be some kind of calculation going on behind his expression, like he was working on a way to make every situation work to his benefit.

"Hello, Dr. Quidd," she said politely as she turned to face him. "Why ever would you be looking for me? I thought all my recruit tests were done for now?"

"Indeed they are!" he said, in a voice that was just a little too bright. "But then I heard about your work with my counterpart Yuri Valov and I was intrigued."

"Intrigued?" repeated Amanda, her feeling of dread intensifying. She could practically hear Lee snarling in her head, Nothing good ever comes from a shrink being intrigued by you.

"Yes indeed," Dr. Quidd went on, oblivious to the way she was practically recoiling from him. "Scarecrow's report says you turned out to be quite susceptible to hypnosis after all?"

"Oh, I wouldn't say quite susceptible" Amanda said, resisting the urge to reach out and flip Quidd's comb-over off the side of his head, just to see if he'd react.

"Well, it was an interesting read, nonetheless," he said with false joviality. "And I was wondering if you had an hour or so to come and run some tests again?"

Amanda cast a longing look toward the safety of the bullpen and her desk, which was obviously clear of work – and no sign of Lee anywhere.

"I suppose so," she sighed, shoulders drooping and turned to follow him.

"Francine, have you seen Amanda anywhere?" Billy was looking around the bullpen as if he half-expected to see Amanda pop up from behind a desk. "Dr. Pfaff here had a couple of follow-up questions for her and Lee about last week."

"Oh they've started without you, I think," said Francine. "She was down doing a debrief with Dr. Quidd when I dropped by medical a few minutes ago." The blonde pouted down at her finger, wrapped in a bandage "There ought to be danger pay opening all these moving boxes – I ripped a nail right off. What a waste of a manicure."

Billy waved off her complaints and pressed her, "You saw her with Quidd? But he's not assigned to this debrief."

Francine shrugged. "What can I tell you? She was sitting in the lab all wired up like a NASA monkey, looking miserable. I didn't even know Amanda had an expression beyond happy-clappy to be honest."

Billy and Dr. Pfaff exchanged a look and turned to walk out of the bullpen.

"What does he think he's doing?" asked Billy irritably. "He's not supposed to approach recruits outside of their evaluations!"

Pfaff rolled his eyes. "Oh, he's always had a kind of obsession with Valov's work with the Murmansk Institute. They take pot shots at each other all the time through the psych journals. It's probably driving him crazy that Valov succeeded where he couldn't. Tell you what – I'll go see what he's up to and you find Scarecrow and bring him down to my office so I don't waste any more time trying to get the last details of their memories of Valov's methods."

Billy nodded and they split at the elevator. When Dr. Pfaff finally found his colleague and Amanda, she did indeed look as miserable as Francine had described, almost as miserable as Dr. Quidd who was obviously having no luck at all at getting her to go under.

"I don't understand it," he was saying in a testy tone. "You keep saying that he just spoke a few words and you went under?"

"Yes," said Amanda helplessly. "I mean, I assume so – Lee tells me I did."

"But what is so different about what I'm doing?" asked Quidd tossing his hands in the air.

"Well, if I knew, I'd tell you," said Amanda in an annoyed tone that suggested she was getting sick of the whole thing.

Dr. Pfaff used the lull in the conversation as they glared at each other, to step into the room. "Maybe Mrs. King doesn't respond well to being pressured, Inky." He smiled genially at Amanda who smiled back, obviously relieved to see a friendly face.

Dr. Quidd whirled at the sound of a new voice, scowling at the much-loathed nickname. "She was under plenty of pressure when they were trying to find Kreschenko and she didn't have any problem then!"

"Well, speaking of that, I'm supposed to be completing my debrief from that situation, so maybe if you're done, I could 'borrow' Amanda for a while? Billy's on his way down to get the last details now."

Quidd glared at him, knowing he didn't have any valid excuse for staying – that in fact, Billy would most likely call him on the carpet for having even attempted this little exercise. "Fine, she's all yours." He turned to walk out of the room, stopping in the doorway to add petulantly, "I don't think Valov hypnotised her at all – I think it was just some memory trick they pulled on him."

There was a beat of silence after he left before Dr. Pfaff turned to Amanda with a smile. "Would you like an ice cream bar, Mrs. King? I'm sure dealing with Inky has left you with a dry mouth."

"That would be nice, thank you." Amanda waited for him to wander across to the small bar fridge and bring her an ice cream and started to unwrap it before asking, "Why Inky?"

"Oh that's an old med school nickname." Dr. Pfaff's eyes twinkled at her over his own ice cream. "Steven Quidd, S. Quidd, Squid… Inky. He hates it when I call him that at work. Thinks it's unprofessional." He reached over to peer at the roll of paper that had been coming out of the printer when he'd arrived and pursed his lips, making a small humming noise of interest. "Amanda? You can say no, but would you mind if I took advantage of you still being wired up to try some hypnosis myself? I was going to ask anyway just to finish off the file, but if you think it would be stressful…" He let the sentence drift off and turned his best puppy dog eyes on her.

"Well, I don't mind," she shrugged. "But I don't know what good it will do. I don't know why it was so easy for Yuri and impossible for Dr. Squid… um, Quidd."

Pfaff's face lit up with a grin at her slip. "Well, maybe it was something he said – or didn't say. You said Yuri just counted you down?"

"Mmm-hmm," Amanda agreed through a mouthful of ice cream bar. She swallowed and went on, "He just told me to relax and he counted and then, well I don't know what then but Lee says I turned into a typing robot."

"And you were relaxed? Even with all that riding on you?" Dr. Pfaff wasn't looking at her now, engrossed as he was in the paper that was still pouring out of the printer with graphs from all the machines she was still hooked up to.

"Well, I didn't think so," admitted Amanda, "But I knew it was important and Lee said I should try and I really did want to help so maybe…?" She stopped and looked at him as he gave off a bark of laughter.

"And you don't want to help Inky?" he asked.

"Oh no! I mean, yes of course I do, if it would help the Agency to learn Yuri's techniques - and I'm sure I don't know why it's not working now," she finished wretchedly.

"Well, let's try it now and see if we can figure it out. Are you done with your ice cream?"

She nodded and lobbed the balled-up wrapper across the room perfectly into the garbage can.

"Okay, so sit back, and close your eyes." He waited for Amanda to obey before asking, "Are you relaxed?"

She nodded and he glanced at the medical equipment briefly. "I'm going to count and when I reach three, you will fall into a deep, deep sleep. Okay?" She nodded again and he counted off slowly, "One… two... three… Amanda?"

"Still here," she sighed without opening her eyes.

"Interesting," commented Pfaff. "But par for the course, really. I'm not sure I was really expecting anything else."

She opened one eye, relieved when she could see he didn't appear upset at all. "You see? I don't know why it doesn't work now. Or why it worked then. Maybe Lee remembers something else he did – like I said, I don't remember anything that happened while I was out of it."

"Well, we'll just have to ask him," said Dr. Pfaff, making some notes.

"Well, maybe you could ask him now," said Lee from the doorway, making both of them jump. He stalked into the room, followed by Billy, and went to stand by Amanda, scowling at the psychiatrist. "I thought I was supposed to be informed of any further tests involving my partner?"

"Oh Lee, it's fine," said Amanda in a placating tone, although she hadn't been able to hide her smile at hearing him refer to her as his partner. "Dr. Pfaff just asked if I could replicate Yuri's technique and I said I'd try but I didn't think it would work, and it didn't and I'm sure I don't know why because he did almost exactly the same thing but I just don't react the same way at all – it's really weird."

Lee had waited patiently for her to reach the end of her ramble before turning back to glare at the doctor. "Why is she hooked up to all this stuff?"

"I'm not really sure, to be honest," he answered. "Dr. Quidd had all this set up when I got here."

"Quidd?" thundered Lee, turning to Billy. "Why is that quack anywhere near her? He's not assigned to this!"

"No, he's not," agreed Billy. "Which is why Dr. Pfaff here interrupted him."

Lee looked at Pfaff suspiciously, eyebrows twitching together as he watched the doctor rummage around the fridge for another ice cream bar. "It doesn't look like you interrupted – it looks like you just took advantage."

"Lee," said Amanda quietly, reaching out to put her hand on his arm. "It wasn't like that. Dr. Pfaff asked if I'd mind trying again and I said I wouldn't. It's fine." She stared up at him with a serious expression while Lee looked back at her, opening, then closing his mouth before crossing his arms and going back to frowning silently at the psychiatrist.

Pfaff appeared completely unperturbed by Lee's resemblance to a leashed tiger. "Indeed, Mrs. King was very gracious – and completely impervious to my hypnotic charms." He grinned at Amanda who smiled back. "But since you are here now, maybe you could help. Do you remember if Valov used any special phrasing or props?"

Lee looked like he didn't want to answer for a moment, turning to look at Amanda who met his eyes with an expectant expression that he knew all too well. He sighed and tried to cast his mind back. "I don't know," he said. "He just told her to relax and she did, and he told her to fall asleep when he got to three and she did, and then she just started spouting stuff from the tapes."

"Interesting." Pfaff adjusted a few knobs on the machines and pulled up some of the printout again. "Amanda? Would you mind if I tried just one more time? Just to let me confirm what Scarecrow said?"

Amanda sighed and glanced at Lee who rolled his eyes and nodded. "Just go along with it and then we can blow this popsicle stand," he muttered, finally smiling a bit when she began to splutter with laughter at the inadvertent joke he'd just made.

Pfaff pulled his chair back up in front of her. "Alright Amanda, are you relaxed? Okay good, now try and release all the tension in your body and listen to me count. When I reach three, would you please fall into a deep sleep?" He waited for her to nod. "Okay, close your eyes… relax… breathe in and out to release all your tension… one… two… three."

To Billy's astonishment, Amanda's head dropped instantly to her chest almost as if she'd lost consciousness. The three men exchanged looks, Lee being the only one who didn't look surprised. He just shrugged and said "See?"

Pfaff was silent for a moment then said in a normal speaking voice, "Amanda, you are at your desk and you are transcribing the interview with…" he looked up at Billy questioningly.

"Zhou Ling," supplied Billy, dredging up a case file he thought she might have worked on.

Amanda lifted her head and went into the familiar typing motion Lee had seen before and began to speak robotically. "I came to Washington through contacts at the Embassy. I was assigned to follow Senator Holmes…"

As she continued to recite the dull details of Zhou's confession, Billy looked at Lee. "Well, it's not something she can do only when it's important apparently. That guy turned out to be a low-level nobody – and she didn't know what we'd ask before she went under."

"Beats me," said Lee helplessly. "I never know what's going on inside her head, to be honest. Maybe because he asked her politely? She's really big on manners." A brief smile went across his face at the memory of how many times Amanda had scolded him on that topic.

He and Billy turned as they heard Dr. Pfaff speaking. "Amanda? Would you please stop for a moment and just lick this test strip for me?"

Without a pause, Amanda reached out, eyes still unfocussed and took the piece of cardboard, licked it carefully and held it back out. Pfaff took it by the end gently and dropped it into a test tube. He glanced up at the two men who were watching him curiously. "Just a theory, nothing to worry about," he said in a comforting voice before turning back to his patient. "Amanda, when I count to three, you will awake refreshed and remember everything that just happened here. One, two three."

Amanda's dark eyes went from blank to expressive in a heartbeat. She wrinkled her nose and looked at Lee. "That feels weird. I won't have to do that a lot, will I?"

"I shouldn't think so," said Lee, grinning "The odds of us having to go Possum twice in a lifetime is pretty slim – I think we can rely on regular transcripts from here."

"That's good. I might tell someone something I don't want to if it's that easy to hypnotise me."

"Like your poppy seed cake recipe?" Lee's eyes were bright with laughter, relieved at getting the normal Amanda back.

"Oh that doesn't worry me - if Edna Gilstrap can't get it out of me, I'm sure the Russians can't."

While they'd been joking, Dr. Pfaff had been unhooking all the leads and monitors. "There you go, Amanda, all free. And I think I have everything I need for your file, so no return visits."

She jumped to her feet immediately, obviously eager to get out of the lab. Lee's hand dropped to the middle of her back as he guided her to the door, just as impatient to leave as she was.

"Can we go past the coffee machine?" she asked Lee as they left. "That cardboard thingy left a really funny taste in my mouth."

Billy watched them leave, turning back to the doctor with a perplexed expression. "Can you explain any of that?" he asked, completely bewildered.

"Actually, yes I think I can," grinned Pfaff. "Just gimme a second." He picked up an eyedropper and added a few drops of something to the test tube with Amanda's test strip in it and shook it vigorously, then peered through the glass, making an approving sound. He held it up against an identical test tube that was already on the table and chuckled. Billy looked at him questioningly but he held up a finger and ripped the roll of printer paper off the machine before finally turning to Billy, beaming. "No need to worry. I don't think anyone will find it that easy to hypnotise Amanda King."

"Says the man who just did," said Billy gruffly. "But tell me why you think so."

Pfaff pushed the paper toward him, showing him the graphs that had been measuring Amanda's pulse rate among other things. "So way up here – that's when Quidd was trying, see? And here - " he pointed to a downward jog in the line. "That's when I got here- see how it flattens out? So that's the timespan when I was trying and this big spike upward is when you and Scarecrow arrived. But then this next drop? That's when I was trying the second time."

Billy looked at him in confusion. "So what? It's easier when she's calm? That doesn't take a medical degree to figure out."

Pfaff smiled happily. "No, but combined with these, it's very telling." He held up the two test tubes and waved them around. "Dr. Quidd started his testing with the same saliva test as I did while she was under – and it measures the secretions in her saliva from her adrenal medulla which she can't fake because it's directly tied to her sympathetic nervous system."

Billy sighed. "How about that in English now?"

"Have you ever heard of the fight-or-flight response, Billy?"

"Of course I have – it's how we deal with stress response."

"Correct. And in Amanda's first test strip, her adrenal levels suggest that her stress response was off the charts – well, not off the charts, but as you can see from the pulse rate, very high."

Billy began to see what was going on. "And her second test?"

"On the second one, there is virtually no measurable level of adrenaline," answered Pfaff happily.

"So we're back to square one – she calmed down, she can be hypnotised."

"Oh no, I don't think so. Based on her pulse rates, she was calming down when I was alone with her, but I can be almost certain her adrenal levels would tell another story. No, I think it was Scarecrow showing up that made the difference."

"You just said her pulse rate went up when we arrived."

"It did, because she was startled and it stayed that way while she was trying to get him to calm down." Pfaff was almost quivering with glee. "It only went down again after I got her under."

"You know you're not making any sense right?"

Pfaff tapped his note pad. "Amanda said Valov hypnotised her only after Scarecrow told her to give it a shot. And just now, she only went under after-"

"After he said to go along with it!" Billy snapped his fingers as he finally began to see the light. "Wait, so you think she just does what he tells her? Because from what I hear from Lee, she does exactly the opposite most of the time."

"No, I don't think that," explained Pfaff, "but I do think that she can only be put under if her flight reflex is off and apparently that only happens when she knows someone that she trusts is there to run interference."

Billy stared at him for moment, rolling that thought around in his head. Suddenly he had a flashback to his conversation with Lee right after the last round of Station One training.

Instead of supporting her like a partner, you spent the whole time discouraging her until she couldn't think straight!

"So are you saying she only does well if she's partnered with Lee?" he asked uncertainly. "Because that would open up a whole other world of problems if that was true."

"Oh no, nothing like that," asserted the doctor, shaking his head vehemently. "We've seen her perform perfectly well by herself when she's had to so she's obviously able to control it. Most women can actually, better than men because they have it built in to stand their ground and protect their young, and if there's one thing we know about Amanda, she has a very strong protective streak." He waited for Billy to nod. "No, I think she just won't drop that mental guard unless she has backup."

"I guess that's a good thing," sighed Billy. "One less thing I need to worry about."

"Oh I'd say you have two less," said the doctor.

"I do?"

"Haven't you noticed any change in Scarecrow's behavior?"

"Well, yes of course I have – he's much more careful in the field these days – he's even more protective of Amanda than she is of him," Billy replied. "It's why I pushed them to work together in the first place."

"Indeed," answered Pfaff. "Well, all I know is that I would love to have had him wired up just now. He was frothing at the mouth when he got here and all she had to do was say his name and he stopped." He snapped his fingers. "Just like that."

Billy burst out laughing. "Because she told him to?"

Pfaff grinned back at him. "More or less. I always wondered how she'd talked him down from that episode with Glaser but it looks like it works both ways with those two."

Billy looked at him thoughtfully. "Do I tell them that?"

"I wouldn't," answered Pfaff. "If they're aware of it, it might interfere with whatever it is they have. Personally I'm just going to leave the note in her file that says "not susceptible to hypnotism" and leave it at that."

"What about his file?" asked Billy, starting to smile.

Pfaff grinned back at him. "I don't think there's anything here that needs to go in his psych profile unless you want me to add something along the lines of 'Lives in state of denial about needing a partner'."

Billy was still reliving that conversation and chuckling to himself a few hours later when Francine stuck her head in the door. "Billy? Priority message from the British Embassy for you." She handed him a folder with a thin stack of papers tucked in it and waited for him to scan the memo on top, nodding his head as he took in the request. "I pulled all the extra info we have on Whitsett and I've got a team working on setting up a safe house. It's all in there."

"Thanks Francine, good work. Is Lee still around?" he asked, looking up.

"Somewhere," Francine rolled her eyes. "I think he's trawling the steno pool."

"I thought he was dating someone already?" Billy didn't even know why he knew that – it had to just be latent osmosis after too many years in this business.

"Margo? Yeah, she dumped him apparently." Francine sounded just a little bit too gleeful about that. She glanced into the bullpen and suddenly announced, "Oh wait, here he is – and based on the look on his face, he's still single."

"That's a pity," said Billy cryptically. He walked to his office door and caught Lee's attention across the room, gesturing for him to join them.

"Scarecrow, cancel that hot date you have for tomorrow night – you've been requested for special assignment." Billy ignored the muffled snort of laughter from Francine and the glare it earned her from Lee, and held out the file for him to read.

"What kind of assignment?" Lee asked before his eye dropped to the paper and his face lit up with a smile. "Emily's in town? That's great!"

"Yes, and she needs your help with something tomorrow night at the Embassy reception."

"Yeah I can see that," said Lee. "Guess I better line up a date."

Lee was still busy reading and missed the laughing look Billy gave Francine. "You think you should bring a date on an MI5 mission?"

Francine bit her lip and stared at the floor, shoulders shaking, while Lee looked up, dark flush rising in his cheeks.

"Yes, a date. I can't show up at a formal Embassy party hosted by Lady Farnsworth by myself – it would attract attention if I don't have the usual arm candy. Why? Is that going to be a problem?"

"Not at all," grinned Billy. "I just heard through the grapevine that you were in a dry spell, dating-wise."

"No, it's ok. I'll take Amanda," said Lee absently, going back to the file.

"I could go," offered Francine. "You know, since you're obviously desperate."

Lee rolled his eyes at her with a disgusted look. "Of course, I'm not desperate! It just has to be someone that will understand what I'm doing there. And besides," he went on triumphantly, "She'll be thrilled to see Emily again."

"That's a good idea," agreed Billy, nodding as he tried not to grin.

Lee glanced at his watch. "She's gone for the day now, but I'll drop by her house tomorrow after her family leaves on that beach trip. Emily and I can arrange everything tonight."

"You're sure she'll be free?" Francine chirped. "She might have plans for a hot date of her own with her family away."

"No, no," said Lee, not really paying attention as he studied the brief again. "She's planning on painting the boys' bedroom or something – she'll probably enjoy being distracted. It'll sure be a lot more fun than hanging around the empty apartment alone."

"Apartment?" Billy needled him.

"What? Oh yeah, I meant house," Lee barely looked up, already deep in thought and planning. "I'm going to go give Emily a call and get things rolling."

He walked back out of the office, still reading the folder, and completely oblivious to the two people behind him who were laughing helplessly at Lee's knowledge of the ins and outs of the King household.

"I can't believe he just used the words arm candy to describe Amanda," Francine gasped when she'd finally managed to stop.

"She's really doing a number on his not-my-partner routine," agreed Billy. "Looks like he might finally be growing out of that one."

"And what a headline: Lee Stetson, international man of mystery, says evening with middle-aged matron and Arlington housewife will be 'fun'. Still claims he's not desperate." Francine continued laughing as she left, leaving Billy staring out the office door to where Lee was at his desk, busily scratching notes already.

"You buried the lede with that headline, Francine," he muttered happily to himself. "It should have been: Lee Stetson: Empty apartments aren't fun anymore."