The Friendship Files: White Horse
Disclaimer: "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" is copyrighted to Warner Brothers and Shoot the Moon Productions. The plot is mine, but not the characters. This story is meant for enjoyment purposes only. No infringement is intended.
Summary: "Fast Food for Thought" extended tag with Francine angry at Lee when she realizes that Lee was there solely to rescue Amanda, not her.
Lee, Francine and Amanda sat in Billy's office and had just finished giving their reports on the Marvelous Marvin's case when Billy said, "Well, people, I think that just about wraps it up."
"So, we're free to go?" Francine questioned a bit stiffly. Lee and Amanda exchanged quizzical looks at the change in her attitude since returning to the agency. During the case, she'd been so upbeat and now, she was...well, she was almost hostile.
Billy noticed it too and inquired with an arched eyebrow, "You have someplace you'd rather be?"
Anywhere but in the same room with Lee Stetson, she thought, but actually said, "No, Sir, I just have a lot of paperwork to catch up on since I was out in the field. My inbox is overflowing."
"I can assign someone to help you with that," Billy suggested. "Lee, you're free, aren't you?"
"Billy, come on," Lee grumbled. Helping Francine with tedious, mind-numbing paperwork was at the bottom of his list of things to do.
Francine looked affronted at that and gave Lee an icy glare. Sure, just pour salt in the wounds, why don't you? She thought. "Sir, are you implying that I can't handle balancing my duties here in the office and my duties as a field agent?"
"No, not at all," Billy replied in a soothing tone. "I'm merely suggesting that another hand might help." He then turned to Amanda. "Amanda, you don't have any pressing assignments, do you? Would you mind giving Francine a hand? With her organizational skills and your typing skills, I'm sure you two very skilled ladies," He smiled at Francine to smooth her ruffled feathers, "could get that all knocked out in no time."
Amanda smiled warmly at Francine and answered, "Sure, I'd be happy to help."
"What am I supposed to do while they're doing that?" Lee complained.
"The vault upstairs could use a good cleaning out," Billy suggested.
"You know, Billy, that's just the kind of thing that Amanda's so good at," Lee told his boss with a smile as he tried to wriggle out of such a boring job.
"Sorry, Amanda's already spoken for," Billy replied with a shake of his head.
"But Billy, she's MY partner," Lee argued.
"Oho, NOW, she's your partner?" Francine said archly. "Hmm, what happened to Mr. I-don't-work-with-partners?"
"Franc-"
"Zip it, Scarecrow," Francine cut him off. "Amanda's mine for the day. You'll just have to go solo." She then grinned salaciously at him and added, "Something that I'm sure you've gotten good at by now."
"Okay, if I could just say something," Amanda interjected. "I'm not yours or his. I'm just here to work and the longer we argue about who going to do what, the less there work there is being done. Now, Lee, once I get done helping Francine, if you still need it, I'll help you too."
"Well put, Amanda," Billy said with a smile. "Now, you all have your assignments, so I suggest you get busy."
"Yes, Sir," Francine replied to Billy but with a triumphant smirk aimed at Lee and then turned to Amanda. "Come on, Amanda, I'll show you where we need to start." She then opened the door and exited the room with Amanda.
"Hop to it, Scarecrow," Billy ordered.
"Ugh," Lee groaned. "I'll get you for this, you know," he added challengingly as he stomped out of the office while Billy laughed heartily.
As he passed by Francine's desk, he paused at seeing the two women engaged in what appeared to be conspiratorial whispers. His curiosity getting the better of him, He asked, "What are you two up to exactly?"
Francine looked at him coolly and answered, "We, unlike you, are working. So you'd best get out of our way and let us do it. you've got your own assignment to work on."
Lee looked pleadingly to Amanda for help, who simply shook her head. "Go on. I'll check in on you a little later to see how you're progressing." Amanda smiled at him encouragingly making him feel as if he were one of her children being told to go clean his room while it was obvious that Francine was trying to stifle a laugh.
He let out a deep sigh, making his way out of the bullpen and toward the elevator. As he rode the elevator upstairs, he couldn't help wondering just what kind of alternate universe he'd stepped into in which Amanda would rather work with Francine than him and in which Francine would actually accept Amanda's help.
For the next hour while he worked on the mundane task of sorting and collating files in the vault, Lee stewed and moped wondering just what the hell was going on with Francine and for that matter, Amanda. He'd thought everything was fine a couple of days ago after he'd rushed into that freezer to pull the two of them out before they could become human popsicles, but now Francine's behavior toward him was colder that the freezer could ever possibly be.
As he thought about it, he realized that Amanda had been a bit aloof as well, since wrapping up that case. He'd asked her out for the next weekend, but she'd begged off, muttering something about some vague thing one of her boys had to do, but he couldn't help thinking that it was a big fat fib. Usually, she would tell him all the details of what her children were doing, but this time she'd just said Phillip had a "thing." When he'd probed, she'd only added, "You know, a school thing," and stubbornly refused to divulge any more details.
He was startled out of his thoughts by the banging open of the door and Francine's icy voice saying, "Here, these belong up here." She then unceremoniously dropped a handful of files on his desk and hurried toward the door.
"Just hold it," Lee demanded as he caught up to her just outside the door, grabbed her by the arm and steered her back into the office.
Francine tried to wrench her arm out of his grasp and hissed, "Let go of me!"
Lee only tightened his grip and said, "Uh-uh. Not until you tell me what the hell's been up your skirt the past two days."
Using her free hand, she slapped him hard across the face, startling him so that he relaxed his grip allowing her to wriggle free. She then turned a scathing look on him. "What's been up my skirt? Really? How could you possibly not know?"
"How am I supposed to know if you don't tell me?" Lee countered, rubbing his face where she'd slapped him. "The way you've been treating me the past two days, it's as if the cold in that freezer froze our friendship too."
"Friendship?" She questioned. "Is that what we have?"
"Yeah," Lee answered then it dawned on him what she was saying. "Wait a minute. Are you saying that we don't?"
"Oh, well, gee, I don't know," she replied acidly. "I always thought friends had each other's backs, but I guess I was wrong."
"When, exactly, did I not have your back?" Lee questioned with a look of utter confusion on his face.
"Think back, Lee. The freezer?"
"Hey, I DID have your back. I got you out of there, didn't I?"
"Yeah, you did," she acknowledged, but never wavering in her withering gaze, "But you were there to rescue Amanda, I just happened to be there so you had no choice but to rescue me too."
"Had no choice?" Lee gaped at her. "What, did you think I would've just left you there? Say, oh yeah, I'll rescue Amanda, but leave you there to fend for yourself?" Her words from earlier then hit him again. "While we're on the subject, what exactly did you mean by that crack about me getting good at going solo?"
"Do I really need to explain that one to you?" She gave him an incredulous look at his sheer stupidity. "That's beside the point anyway. The point is that you didn't give a single thought about me on that case. Did you even wonder where I was while you were off on your white horse charging in to save your precious Amanda?"
"Oh, I see what this is about." He sighed, raked a hand through his hair and explained, "Look, I KNEW that Amanda's life was in danger. I didn't know yours was too." He paused for a beat, grinned at her and then added, "Besides, I figured a highly skilled, highly trained agent like yourself can take care of yourself. Isn't that what you're always spouting to anyone who will listen, that you're twice as tough as any man out there?" Francine just stared at him open-mouthed, for a moment at a loss for words. "If you're so tough, how'd you end up in there anyway?"
Finding her voice she fired back caustically, "I only got into that situation because I was trying to rescue YOUR Amanda."
"MY Amanda? What do you mean, MY Amanda?" Lee questioned. "You heard her very plainly downstairs, that she's not anybody's."
"And that's why she's pissed at you too," Francine then sneered at him. "If you don't want to continue "going solo" you might wanna' rethink things the next time you register the two of you as brother and sister." She then turned on her heel and walked out of the room.
Lee caught up to her just as she opened the door at the end of the hall that led to the foyer below and queried, "Wait a minute. Did Amanda say something to you?"
Francine just smiled, shook her head and hurried down the stairs, leaving Lee scratching his head in puzzlement. He let out another deep sigh and having no choice, went back to finish the job he'd started.
Another hour went by while Lee continued to mull over Francine's words about "going solo," the "your Amanda" and the brother and sister bit, trying to figure out exactly what she was talking about. Finally finished, he put the last file in its proper home and wondered just what Amanda was up to. She'd said when she was done with helping Francine, she'd come up to help him. He couldn't imagine what Francine could have to do that would have taken so long. He decided that he had to find out.
When he entered the bullpen, he spotted the two of them sitting around Francine's desk, an open box of DeVaronna chocolates between them, the same one he'd seen Francine with that he knew Amanda had given her. As he approached them, her noticed they were laughing and not working. "What...Uh...what's going on here?" He asked with a wary smile.
Both women looked at him and said in tandem, "Nothing."
"If you don't mind, we've got a few things we still need to wrap up here," Amanda said sweetly, but with just a hint of sarcasm beneath it.
"O-kay-ay," He said dubiously as he walked away, realizing that he was being dismissed. As he walked away, he heard Francine whispering something about a "white horse." Shaking his head, he couldn't help whistling the theme from The Twilight Zone.