A League of Their Own
Author: RaizelinPlaid
Edited by: Clagjanet
Disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me. They belong to Shoot the Moon Enterprises and Warner Bros to whom I am eternally grateful to for the opportunity to keep their adventurous lives going and to the wonderful actors who created them.
Summary: A/U one-shot story continuing the tag of Service Above and Beyond. Seeing her boys' baseball mitts has Amanda reflecting about how the game of baseball, which is where we start the episode, actually comes back into play at the end. Could the game be applied to her relationship with Lee at this point given what happened on their last case? Could they both win someday?
A/N: After a really bad day and trying to relax, I was reading yet again how Lee was out of Amanda's league when they first met after just having watched the episode Service Above and Beyond. For some reason, that idea began to bother me. It was a frigid night with rain, snow, sleet, and hail in April after a long winter. Listening to the sleet and hail make ringing sounds on my window panes, this little one-shot got written. I think I was dreaming of warm breezes, the smell of hot dogs on the barbeque and recalling Spring and Summers watching the Yankees play from the rooftop of my grandparents' apartment building. My deepest thanks and appreciation goes out to Clagjanet for yet again being so willing to bat clean-up for me. My Yankee cap is off to you!
Amanda remained leaning against her windowsill watching Lee's retreating back. The dishes could wait a few more minutes while she struggled to catch her breath. The thought that he had carried her down the stairs of Delano's mansion to rescue her kept echoing through her mind. How she wished she had been awake to feel his strong arms holding her like that. Protecting her.
Pushing that useless wish out of her mind, she turned to go back inside to her dishes. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the pair of baseball mitts left haphazardly on the picnic table. The boys had forgotten to put them away again after their practice in the backyard earlier that afternoon. Shaking her head in dismay and knowing she would have few words with them about putting away their equipment in the morning, she went over to pick them up to bring them inside with her as it was going to rain that night.
Turning the gloves over in her hands reminded her of the night the latest case had started. Jamie and Phillip had gotten home from losing a baseball game. Not just losing, in fact, but being blown off the field in a shutout game, despite all her coaching efforts. Amanda winced at the memory of her sore ankle that night from trying to show the boys how to do a proper hook slide. The boys had barely eaten their dinner that night. They had lost their appetites as badly as they'd lost that game. What made it worse for the boys was the fact that the winning team had girls on it. She still remembered her mother's pithy comeback of how that explained everything.
Amanda smiled to herself about the hint of truth in that remark. Mulling it over some more, she began to think about how girls could play that game just as well, if not better, than the boys. She remembered the first fastball Lee had ever thrown at her. It was when she met him at that party to give him back the package. When she had looked at him, standing on those stairs, she could feel that fastball strike her right in the face forcing her to turn away lest she be knocked out of the batter's box. His pitches at the train station and Moby Dick's had been softballs by comparison to the sight of him in that tux. She'd known then and there that she was way out of his league.
Now, Lee had again tried to throw yet another fastball her way. Just a few nights ago he had called with his unexpected invitation to James Delano's reception. All she had really wanted to do that night was wash her hair, soak her foot, and go to bed. She really had been in no mood to play his game. She remembered thinking to herself, as she had tried to field that pitch with the choice of a proper dress for an evening out, that she always felt that she was so far out his league when he took her to one these events. She couldn't ask him for details as her mother had been standing in the kitchen right next to her when his surprise pitch had been made in her direction. He just asked her if she had a nice dress. Chuckling to herself now, all he really wanted to know is if she had basically a heavy hitting wooden bat. He never said where they were going or what really he expected of her. Just to meet him at the Reflecting Pool at 9 o'clock that night. It was so typical of him. She always felt that he was playing some game with her, and she never knew the rules. So, thinking you could never go wrong with a simple black spaghetti strapped evening gown, she went searching for the only one she had at the back of her closet. She had pushed through all her jeans, t-shirts, sweatshirts, plaid shirts and sneakers that were part of her normal everyday uniform of motherhood to find it. She had hoped that leaving her hair down for the evening with long dangling earrings would add an air of appeal to the outfit. As she had left the house for their rendezvous, she had remembered thinking to herself, "Well, batter up."
After all her worry about running the bases to get ready to be on time, Lee had barely commented on her appearance. She'd had to even ask him if she looked okay. Then, finding out that the only reason he had asked her to go with him was that he couldn't be seen entering a party alone on a Friday night, made her feel that she had just been called up from having warmed the bench. She wasn't even a starter, but more a second stringer called up from the minor leagues to fill in for an injured major leaguer. As soon as they entered the party, he had left her standing at the bar so he could go to his meeting. There she was, on the field of play, with no rule book or even time to practice. She was just thrown into the game with pitches coming at her from all directions. She had no clue whether to bunt, step out of the box, or just field a pitch and hope for a line drive. There was no coach on the field to send her signals. She was on her own.
So she had done the best she could, making up the rules as she went. She had to admit that creating the character of Victoria Greenwich, as much as she was a fantasy, did have elements of herself. Having James Delano attracted to her just proved that she was no ordinary rookie and that she could very well play the game as well as Lee. Besides, he had told her to continue playing when he had left her standing there. If anything, she had really had hit it out of the ballpark that night.
But as good as Lee's fastballs were, Amanda thought, continuing with her mental baseball game, her curveballs had really thrown Lee for a loop. His reaction to her dinner out with James made her realize that she had him swinging wildly at every pitch. He had no clue what she was going to send his way next: curve, slider, or knuckle. The look on his face when she had finally returned to Victoria's home was of a sore loser, his mind obviously firmly in the dugout. That thought gave her the great satisfaction of a well-placed line drive. She had definitely gotten him out.
Lee had seemed like a man trying to figure out how to steal a base when he had taken her for a walk. He wanted her to step-up to the plate one more time by getting an invitation to Delano's party on Saturday night. She thought she'd made an unforced error when she'd inadvertently admitted that she basically had a crush on him with her fantasies of secret agents. Luckily, she was able to quickly recover with his next pitch which went directly over the plate. She was easily able to hit another one out of the park by telling him that she had already garnered an invitation to the party from James the night before.
Looking at the boys' gloves still in her hands, Amanda came to a conclusion. It wasn't that she was out Lee's league. It was just that she was in a league of her own. Yes, that was it! She was just like the American League with her station wagon, mortgage, apple pies, homework, little league games, cub scouts, and curling up in front of the tv to watch a good movie on a Friday night. But Lee? Now he was more like the National or really International League. He was nightclubs, fancy parties, fast cars, bottles of expensive champagne and women who spent their days getting their hair, nails, and make-up done. However, different leagues or not, that just meant then, they were at least playing the same game and eventually they were going to go head to head again. As the first drops of rain began to fall, Amanda finally turned to head back in. Although their latest game might have gone into extra innings this time, she had no doubt she felt with a sense of satisfaction, it had just ended in a tie.