Disclaimer: These characters belong to Warner Brothers and Shoot the Moon. The story is my own, and I wrote it only for entertainment and for the pleasure of Lee and Amanda's company in fiction. I hope that you enjoy it!
Lee's fingers tremble as he works the pick against the tumblers. The lock he is trying to open is not complicated—just a standard lock of the kind found on many garage doors, cabinets, and sheds. After all, how many people try to break into the cabin of a sailboat? A gust of wind spatters more cold raindrops on his chilled hands, and from behind him, he can hear a small squeak from Amanda. God, he has to get this lock open! One more minute of trying, he thinks to himself, and if the twin doors are still locked, he'll break one down. The boat is bucking from side to side against the pier, the waves steely-grey and agitated. The picklock is slippery and cold, and he fears that he'll drop it on the glazed deck. His breath puffs out in a quick cloud. He hears Leatherneck's instructions in his mind, his taunting voice, "Come on, Ace; you need to get this lock picking down! You think it's beneath you now, but someday, a life might depend on it—yours or someone else's." He feels the click that he's been searching for, and the teak doors swing open.
Immediately, he turns to find Amanda, keeping the starboard door open with his shoulder as he reaches for her. She is hunched in her navy blue jacket, her head tipped forward, face hidden by the hood, hands thrust into the slash pockets. Her upper body is curved forward like a "C," and he experiences a lurch of renewed concern. He's never seen her look like this. She's always so alert and upright. So ready to accompany him. Now she looks like she is going to collapse at any moment. And it's all his fault. Why did he ever offer her that damned package in the first place? She should be safe at home, not racketing around with him on some mission gone sour.
He grips her forearms and then backs through the door and down the three steps of the companionway, drawing her gently after him. She stumbles as she descends the steps, her feet in waterlogged leather hiking boots alarmingly clumsy. Lee releases his hold on her to pull the doors shut against the rain. The muted light filtering in through the portholes is barely enough to see by. More wind-driven showers make a skittering sound on the deck overhead.
"Amanda?" He unties the strings of her hood and slips it off her head. She's shaking with cold, wisps of damp hair sticking to her forehead and cheeks. Unthinkingly, he smooths them back. "Amanda? Are you okay?"
He's shocked to see that her eyes are unfocused, slewing to one side almost as soon as her gaze meets his. "Ccccold, Lee. Just a little ccccold." Her lips are greyish-blue, her skin pale and translucent. Her arms hang limply, but her hands are curved up into loose fists.
"I know, I know." He shucks off his own wet coat as quickly as he can and drops it on a bench next to the table. "Come here." He talks over his fear, wanting to reassure her but feeling impatience rising like the tide. "Your coat is drenched. And it's not waterproof, is it?" His voice holds a splinter of unintended reproach. 'Can't she at least dress for the weather, for God's sake?' he asks himself, concern making him sharp.
"I didn' have time," she mumbles, "to fin' a raincoat. Or an umbrella." Of course not. He called her this morning, too hurried to fill her in on the case, telling her that she needed to be ready in fifteen minutes, not bothering to inquire if she wanted to work today or if she had other obligations. Now, worry stabs him. The shaking, the slurred speech, the confusion—she's in the middle stages of hypothermia for sure.
"Let's get rid of this coat, okay?" he reaches out to fiddle with the top snap, holding onto her arm firmly with his other hand as she sways in place. Not waiting for a response, he pulls on the storm flap to release the rest of the snaps, swiftly unzips the coat, and draws it off of her. She slouches unresistingly, alarming him further. He drops his hands on her slender shoulders, her pale blue cardigan fluffy under his palms, and bends to peer into her face. "At least you have a turtleneck on. Is your sweater damp, Amanda?"
She pauses, mulling over this question, and then shakes her head deliberately, exaggeratedly. "No, not damp. Jus' not warm." She chuckles briefly.
"Oh, Amanda," Lee murmurs ruefully, and he runs his hands lightly down the length of her arms to check for himself, ending with his thawing fingers clasped around her icy ones. "The problem with you is that you have almost no body fat," he says, releasing her hands.
"I'll wwwork on thaaat," she stutters, waves of shivering sweeping over her. He shrugs out of his own cardigan and steps behind her to guide her arms into the still-warm sleeves. Owlishly, she watches him button her into the sweater. "Hey, this is your brown sweater with the shaw' collar. You'll be cold without this." She pauses, frowning. "And besides, that awfu' Eva wore this sweater. I don't want it. She would've shot you. And she called me,'Mandy.' What a witch." She struggles in the enveloping folds of wool, trying to rid herself of the sweater and its unwelcome associations.
"Don't worry; I've had it dry-cleaned since then. And my shirt is flannel—I'm fine." This seems to satisfy her, and she stands still except for the shivering. Her forlorn appearance—the cardigan's sleeves hang well over her fingertips, and the bottom hem hits her at mid-thigh—twists unexpectedly at his heart. She looks like a waif, her dark eyes flicking up at him and then down at the floor, all their usual sparkle quenched. The boat's rocking makes it hard for her to stay on her feet, and a particularly violent roll sends her stumbling toward him.
He catches her before she can fall and guides her to the berth near the bow of the boat, carefully seating her on its edge. "Now, the boots," he says with forced cheer and kneels beside her. The leather laces are sodden and tangled, and the shivering makes her feet jerk slightly in his hands, but he finally manages to undo the laces. He pulls the boots off, letting them clunk to the floor.
"Lee," Amanda whispers. "My socks are wet. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She's trying valiantly not to cry; her face crumples and she's whimpering with the effort. A fresh whip of fear lashes over him. Amanda almost never cries. The only two times that he has seen her in tears involved a grave risk to his life or hers. Is this another of those times? She has stopped shivering, and he knows that this is a bad sign; her body has given up on attempting to warm itself. Her head droops forward so that her brow lightly touches his. He lets her rest there.
"Hey, no tears, all right? We've got enough water to deal with already." His voice is low and husky. A brief, intense urge to take her fine-boned face in his hands and brush the tears away with his thumbs flashes through him, but he squashes the impulse, pulls back slowly, and offers her a clean, slightly damp handkerchief from his pocket. She scrubs at her face and returns it, tossing it by one corner as if it's a surrender flag, hiccupping with her head bowed, her disordered hair flowing over the shawl collar. Still kneeling, he tugs her bright blue socks off one by one and gives her chilled right foot a brisk, brief rub. "Let's see what we can find here, partner." The "partner" has slipped out, but he doesn't regret it. Something about the combination of "partner" and "socks" has snagged a memory, but he has no time to pursue the association.
Lee rises and begins opening the large compartments above the berth, finding neat coils of rope, boxes of paper products, mesh bags of pennants, and—to his relief, two woolen blankets and some dry clothing. He plucks a grey plaid blanket out of a bin and wraps it around Amanda, instructing her, "Hold this." Kneeling again, he works a large pair of white cotton athletic socks, the only kind he could find, onto her feet. They slide into folds around her ankles. She stares at her feet dully, apparently having lost all interest in clothing. Her stillness makes Lee's breath catch.
"How about a rest now, Amanda, hnnh?" With hands on her shoulders again, he gently eases her down on the bunk, arranging the blanket as she subsides so that it covers her completely. Then he snaps the second blanket (red this time) over her as well and tucks them both around her. He can hear her teeth chattering, and the blankets are quivering. 'She's shivering again—thank God,' he tells himself, but he runs his fingers through his already disheveled hair in agitation. How long before she gives into deeper levels of cold? She's so light, so slender, and a quick tour of the galley reveals that the owners have stripped the boat of food for the winter season and not restocked yet. "I'd give anything for a cup of hot tea, Amanda," he mutters. She has turned on her side facing outward, her legs drawn up in a subconscious effort to warm up.
Having run out of options, Lee quickly unlaces and pulls off his own boots, removes the pistol from his leather shoulder holster, tucks it into the back waistband of his khaki trousers, clambers into the bunk behind Amanda, burrows under the blankets, and takes her in his arms, recreating her posture with his own.
He's braced for the protests that will surely come, but all she does is murmur, "Spoons," and then settles back more firmly against him.
Now Lee is really scared. She must have passed through confusion into delirium. "'Spoons'? What do you mean, 'spoons'?"
"We're snuggled together like spoons in a drawer. I'm the inside spoon. That's best. Don't you know about spoons, Lee?"
"No," he chuckles in relief and thinks, 'That's another thing I've learned from you, Amanda King, like how to make a kitchen cheery.' Under all the layers of clothing, he can feel her slender body still shaking, and he eases himself as close to her as he possibly can, his chin against her shoulder, his fingers encircling her huddled arms, his legs drawn up behind hers. The bolsters that they're using for pillows feel almost as hard as sandbags to him. Her damp hair smells fresh, maybe from the rain. He can't detect any warmth coming from her, and he wills his body heat to reach her. The rocking of the boat and the pattering rain are deceptively soothing.
"Mmm, this is nice, Lee," she says in the rickety voice that he can conjure up in his head better than anyone else's these days. "I'm going to take a nap now, but be sure to wake me if you need me. If those unsavory men come back…" She exhales and nestles more comfortably in his arms.
Lee can't help smiling in the gloom at her use of "unsavory," but he's instantly alert again, too. If Amanda falls asleep, he won't be able to monitor her condition. "No, no, Amanda; I need you to stay awake. Please. Just...keep me company for a while, okay? Don't sleep yet. Talk with me." He tries to keep the pleading and the fear out of his voice, even though he's fairly sure that she's in no frame of mind to notice nuances. This whole episode will likely be a blur to her once she recovers. And she has to recover.
Amanda sighs a shuddering sigh, and he knows how much she wants to abandon herself to slumber. "Oh, all right. What do you want to talk about?" She's clearly humoring him.
Lee's mind races as he tries to think of a subject that she'll be interested in and have a lot to say about. "Your father. Tell me about your father. Will you do that?"
"My father…" The husky words trail off. "I adore my father. He's been gone for fourteen years and I still think about him every day. I wish he had known the boys; he would've loved being a grandfather. Playing ball with them, taking them to the shore, building things in the backyard, you know?"
Lee doesn't know, but he wishes he did. His grandfathers both died while he was a small child, even before his parents were snatched away from him. They are only stern men in black-and-white pictures to him.
"Did he do those things with you?" he asks softly. He thinks that her shivering might be easing, and this time, that's a relief. He tightens his hold on Amanda in response. He is fairly sure that he can feel a little warmth trickling back to him from her.
She doesn't seem to notice, and she has relaxed, no longer feeling rigid with cold in his embrace. He'd like to ask her if she's feeling any better, but he hesitates to draw attention to this unfamiliar proximity. Although oddly, it feels more natural than he could've guessed it would to hold Amanda in his arms.
She pauses. "Well, we were close. More alike than Mother and I are. But back then, fathers weren't as involved in their children's lives as they are today." (Except for the mysterious Mr. King, Lee notes, who apparently has no presence in his kids' lives at all.) They are both quiet for a moment, thinking about parents and children. "What's your favorite food, Lee?" Her question is so startling that he answers immediately, unthinkingly.
"Rhubarb crunch." Where did that come from? Amanda's current erratic thinking seems to have transferred itself to him. Why didn't he say sea scallops or Camembert cheese or German pretzels?
"Rhubarb crunch? Funny, I wouldn't have taken you for a rhubarb man. When did you last have it?"
"1955." How did they get on this subject? She's made such an abrupt shift in topic that he's not sure how addled her thinking still is. Her shivering has eased to an occasional shudder.
"Ah." She appears to be pondering the date. "Did your mother make it for you?"
Effortlessly, Lee is back in the kitchen of his boyhood home on an unseasonably cool spring evening. His mother is spooning rhubarb crunch into a bright yellow bowl for him and asking if he'd like a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. The copper kettle is whistling because she's going to make tea, and she'll give him a splash in his milk because drinking tea makes him feel grown up. The kitchen windows are misted from the steam. "Your father will be home any minute," she says, fondly smoothing down his hair, "and you can stay up until he comes." This memory, lost to him for years, rays out in his mind like sunlight, and he finds himself wishing that he could share it with Amanda. "Yes," he says brusquely, and leaves the rest unspoken.
How does she do that—hone in on the most tender, vulnerable parts of his past? He's worked hard over the years to be self-reliant, to create a strong shell, yet she breaches it, time and again. Often he is angry with her and with himself and pushes her roughly away. Still, she keeps coming back. And maybe, he has to admit to himself, he keeps coming back, too, although he doesn't know why. There's something about her, about the two of them together…
"Lee," her raspy voice sounds stronger and more confident now. He is toasty under the two blankets, and he hopes that she is, too.
"What?"
"Do you really speak Urdu?" She's teasing him now, he's sure.
"Yes, a little bit. I haven't used it in a long, long time, though."
"Say something in Urdu. Please?" Her tones are scratchy and wheedling; she sounds like herself again.
Lee casts his mind back, and the words come out haltingly. "اب آپ سو کر سکتے ہیں."
"What does that mean?" she asks. She is so trusting with him. He could say anything to her in this situation, and how would she know? But she trusts him to tell the truth, and he will.
"It means, 'You can sleep now.'"
"Oh my gosh, I'm glad to hear that. Not that I don't enjoy talking with you, Lee," she adds hastily. "But I'm just so darned tired; I can hardly keep my eyes open. Hey, when the weather warms up and rhubarb is in season, I'll make you a crunch. I'm sure that Mother will have a recipe in one of her cookbooks. She loves rhubarb, too. It's kind of an old-fashioned food, I always think. Homey."
His breathy chuckle is genuine. "Okay, that's a deal. You go ahead and sleep now."
"Remember to wake me if you need me," she murmurs, already drowsy, and then she rearranges her head slightly on the bolster.
"I will."
Her breathing slows and steadies. Knowing that she's asleep, he gives one of her hands, which has partially emerged from the cardigan's sleeve, a few light strokes with his thumb. His arm under her body is numb from the pressure, but he ignores this. In half an hour, he will wake her, and they will probably be a little awkward with each other for a while. But now, in the dim, rocking boat, he holds her, reassured by her warmth, which reminds him, he realizes slowly, of an ember. Or maybe a candle. Yes, that's it. A candle flame.