Disclaimer: "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" is copyrighted to Warner Brothers and Shoot the Moon Productions. The plot is mine, the characters are not. This story is meant for enjoyment purposes only. No infringement is intended.
Author's Note: Just a little filler for the episode "The Wrong Way Home" to explain how Lee ended up at Dooley's in the tag scene. This idea came about from a chat in the SMK fan group on Facebook, so I wanted to offer my thanks to Nancy and Dawn for the inspiration. You ladies are awesome!
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No Going Back
Lee Stetson got into his beloved Corvette, shaking his head in disbelief. He'd slipped into Amanda's backyard just to see her again, desperately wanting to talk to her, to clear the air in an attempt to ease the tension that had developed between them over the past few days. He'd believed that because Amanda was divorced, her relationship with her ex was long over with, but yet when he'd arrived with the thought in mind of taking her out to dinner since her ex was with the kids, he'd been shocked to hear him arrive with the boys and even further shocked to hear her accept a dinner invitation from him. He glared at the house that Amanda had once shared with the man, his frustration growing as he saw them exit through the front door hand in hand, Joe opening the passenger door to her station wagon, helping her in before settling himself into the driver's seat as if he owned it. Where did he got off? He'd left her, so what right did he have to act like that and more importantly, why was she letting him?
"What is she thinking," Lee growled as he slammed his fists on the steering wheel. He'd thought they'd been heading toward something together. Hadn't he taken her out several times already? Hadn't he destroyed all his black books and forsaken all other women for her? She'd even blackmailed him into taking her to Spencer's with that crazy photo of him and Francine, not that he'd minded. Not to mention that that night in the swamp, they'd held each other so closely and had damn near kissed. In his typical fashion, he'd tried to write it off as just two cold people trying to get warm because he wasn't quite ready to tell her how much he loved her. She hadn't let him get away with it though, leaving him speechless with a saucy grin and the words, "Not exactly." That had told him all that he needed to know or so he thought, but now? Now as he watched her familiar station wagon disappearing around the corner with her ex at the wheel, he wasn't so sure.
Running a hand through his hair, he decided that he had to find out for sure. He jammed his keys into the ignition and with a squeal of rubber on the asphalt, her whipped the 'Vette around the other direction, not caring if it alerted her nosy neighbors as he put all his tailing skills to work to follow the wagon. He watched Amanda and her ex through the rear window of her car, chatting amiably, wondering how it is that they could be divorced, yet still be so friendly, but at the same time, hoping against hope that Amanda would be so engrossed in the conversation that she wouldn't notice him behind her. He just prayed that she wouldn't be too engrossed. When the wagon pulled onto the Key Bridge heading toward Georgetown, he breathed a sigh of relief as he was now able to duck behind another car, decreasing the chance of Amanda's keen eyes spotting him.
Ten minutes later, Lee shook his head again as he saw that Amanda's car was pulling to a stop in front of Dooley's. "Why does that not surprise me," he muttered as he kept driving, making a leisurely trip around the block to avoid being seen while they exited her vehicle. Of course her ex would take her to the same place that they'd spent so much time together in their youth. What better place to attempt to rekindle their romance?
He rounded the last corner and once again did a U-turn, parking across the street, violently jamming the gearshift into park. He glared across the traffic to the building that Amanda and Joe had just entered, his thoughts in whirl. Why did this have to happen now, just when he and Amanda were finally on the verge of starting something real? "Damn it!" he swore, cursing himself more than anything that he'd waited so long to tell her how he felt about her.
Sitting there in his car, Lee's thoughts began to drift back to the events of the past couple of months and how they'd been gradually going closer. He could pinpoint with certainty the exact moment that he'd known that there was no going back for him, that Amanda was the one, the only one that he could ever be with. It was that fateful evening when a lovely woman had appeared out of nowhere to fix him a romantic dinner, had changed into the party dress he'd bought her to model it for him and what had he done? He'd called her Amanda. Leslie had been unbelievably gracious about it, treating it as if it were just a slip of the tongues because Amanda had just left them, but he'd known in that instant that as great as Leslie was, it could never work.
During the course of events that had followed, he'd come to realize that all of his attempts to have a real relationship with Leslie had been just him once again trying avoid sharing his real feelings with Amanda. God, he'd practically tried to turn Leslie into a carbon copy of her in buying her that damned dress. What was wrong with him? Why couldn't he just own up to his feelings for her? Why couldn't he admit to her that there was no going back? Now it may be too late. Her ex was back in her life and she didn't seem to mind in the slightest.
His mind continued to wander, this time over more recent events, particularly Amanda's reluctance to share the details of the divorce. He swore that he'd seen a glimmer of pain in her eyes when he'd asked that day in the Q Bureau and had hoped that she'd open up to him about it, but instead, she started spouting facts and dates, the kind of things that he could find out just by reading her file. When he'd called her on it and she'd asked why, he spewed some nonsense at her about criminal psychology, but in truth, he wanted to get to know her better, needed to know what it was that had caused her marriage to end so that in pursuing his own relationship with her, he wouldn't make the same mistakes that her ex-husband had.
Later on while sitting in the very same bar that she was now in with Joe King, he'd seen that glimmer of pain again when she'd finally relented and given him more details of what had led to her failed marriage, but she'd quickly tried to brush it off in telling him that life had turned out okay. He couldn't help his immediate reply that okay wasn't good enough for her. He'd come very close to revealing his love for her then and there, but as luck would have it, they were once again interrupted by the arrival of the man they'd just been talking about.
Things had gone quickly downhill from there, from him entering the room that Joe had been staying in to find them holding hands, to Amanda coolly calling him "Mr. Stetson," then calling her ex "Sweetheart," to seeing the two of them with their children looking very much like a complete family unit, the boys having instantly rushed to their father as soon as they'd seen him. Lee let out deep sigh of frustration as these thoughts plagued him. He'd been around Phillip and Jamie for years, had protected them, and yet they didn't even have a clue that he existed. He'd built up these fantasies that in getting closer to their mother as he had, that he might one day also get closer to them as well, but in seeing the way they'd greeted Joe, he just had a feeling that would never happen. Phillip and Jamie hadn't even acknowledged his presence in the gym. Why should they, he thought bitterly. He had only saved their lives, after all. Why should they say a word to a man they'd never met when their absentee father was there?
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes as he tried to focus on more positive memories. His dinner dates with Amanda, the almost-kiss in the swamp, the way they'd spoken so openly to one another that night while wrapped in each other's arms. The teasing they'd done just last week while undercover on the Mata Hari II, Amanda one-upping him at every turn. He didn't mind though, even their little war over the damn candle made him smile. He rather liked it that she was growing more confident and more comfortable when they were together.
"Ugh," he groaned as he opened his eyes again, sitting up straighter as he tried to stretch out his stiff muscles, a combination of the fight in the gym and sitting in the car for so long. He glanced down at his watch and was surprised to find that an hour had passed since the moment he'd slunk stealthily away from Amanda's back yard, too chicken to make his presence known. He glanced across the street again to see Amanda's car still parked in the same spot. "What the hell are they doing in there for so long?" he grumbled. He finally decided to check it out. What harm could it do? If he got caught, he could just say that he stopped in for a beer after work.
"Yeah, that'll work," he said with more confidence than he felt as he watched the traffic, looking for an opening so he could cross the street. As soon as it appeared, he quickly slipped out of his vehicle and trotted to the other side, pausing for a moment to catch his breath and calm his jangled nerves when he reached his destination. He stood with his hand on the door handle, uncertainty filling him, suddenly thinking that this was a bad idea. "Come on, Stetson," he chided himself. "Just do it."
With a deep breath, he opened the door and tried his best to appear nonchalant as he casually strolled toward the bar and ordered a beer while scanning the crowd of patrons for his target. He reached into his pocket and absently tossed a handful of bills at the bartender, taking a small sip of his beer as he looked back over the crowd. When he finally spotted Amanda, he felt a sharp stab of pain at seeing her in the arms of her ex, watching how they moved so comfortably together on the dance floor, recalling memories of last New Year's Eve and how he'd held her like that as they swayed to the music.
He was about to turn to leave, when he saw Amanda pull back slightly from Joe, the tightness in his chest suddenly easing as she locked eyes with him, beaming brightly, her eyes alight with just a hint of amusement dancing in them. He couldn't help the giddy grin the spread across his own face as they just gazed at one another for a moment longer before he watched her turn her head very briefly and say something to her ex who nodded and released his hold on her.
Lee's smirk widened as Amanda approached him, a bemused expression on her face. "Well," she said with a teasing lilt in her voice, "I was wondering how long you were going to sit out there in your car."
"I don't know what you mean," he replied evasively as he made a big show of drinking his beer. "I just came in here for a drink." He held up his glass to demonstrate.
"Uh-huh." Amanda countered disbelievingly. "So, you weren't following me then? Because, you know, I could've sworn that I saw your car parked down the block from my house and it's the strangest thing...on the way here, I'm pretty sure that I caught a glimpse of a car identical to yours behind us all the way. I mean, I know I don't have your level of experience, but I've gotten pretty good at spotting a tail."
"Okay, you caught me," Lee admitted with a soft chuckle. "But I...um...I just wanted to make sure you were safe, the kids were safe...no more threats against any of you." He wanted to tell her that the real reason he'd been following her was his fear of a different kind of threat entirely.
As if reading his thoughts, Amanda answered his unasked question, "Lee, we were just catching up. You don't have to feel threatened by him."
"Threatened? Me? I'm not threatened," Lee denied.
"Well, if you were, I just want you to know that you don't need to be." She then leaned in, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek.
'What was that for," Lee asked.
"A thank you for helping my boys' father come home to them," Amanda answered. "I...uh...I should get back, but I wanted you to know that...Well, I just wanted you to know..."
"I know," Lee confirmed with a slight nod. "So, seeya' at the office on Monday?"
"Yeah," she said smiling once more before making her way back to the father of her children.
Lee drained the last of his beer and left the bar leaving them to their catching up, his heart feeling lighter than it had all week, his uncertainties fading away now that Amanda had confirmed that there was no going back for her either.
