What?!

By RaizelinPlaid

Edited by: Clagjanet

Disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me. They belong to Shoot the Moon Enterprises and Warner Bros to who I am eternally grateful to for the opportunity to keep their adventurous lives going and to the wonderful actors who created them.

Summary: As we watch Amanda lead the Agency's best agents around by their noses on the monitors in Billy's office in Stemwinder 1, I have often wondered 'what' could have been going through her mind especially after she just thought she had heard the words "I love you." come across one static-filled phone line from of all people - Lee Stetson. What could she have really heard as he is last words to her before that line went dead? And what did happen to lead Lee back to Amanda's bedroom after escaping from the grocery store? This is my 'what if' take on those missing scenes between Lee escaping and next we see him lying on her bed. Written originally for the 35th fanzine.

A/N: This little filler assumes that Unfinished Business occurred before the Stemwinder Part 1 and 2 in Season 4. Any grammatical, spelling, or plot errors are solely mine.

Chapter 1: Amanda thought what?

"What?" Amanda blurted out in response to Lee's unexpected declaration of love. She continued holding the phone tight against her ear. Her free hand pushed painfully in on her other blocking the background noise of the ice cream stand. "What?" her brain screamed into the now dead phone line. She continued listening, hoping beyond hope that Lee was still there and would answer this one question.

Amanda couldn't believe what she had just heard. "What did he just say to me?" she kept asking herself silently waiting for a response. Instead, the only response she got was the dial tone.

T.P. watched quizzically as unchoreographed emotions now danced across Amanda's face. He had seen the look of shock and confusion as she had asked, "What?", then, as she continued with her death grip on the phone, her face turned ghostly white as panic seemed to take over. Lee had told T.P. enough about Amanda to know that her being silent like this was not a good sign. Gently he touched her arm covering her ear to get her attention. She just turned and looked at him with her chocolate brown eyes searching his face for the answer to her one question, "What?"

T.P. took the phone now sitting in her other hand on the table and returned it to his briefcase. He wasn't sure she was even aware that she had finally brought it down from her ear. He could see the fading red mark it had left from the pressure. "Ah, Mrs. King, what did Lee tell you?"

The sound of T.P.'s voice had Amanda shaking her head to clear it. What had he said to her? She struggled to replay every single word leading up to those last three that had shaken her to her very core.

"He told me to take the long way home. He told me to use up their manpower because they will keep me safe. He told me he had one more card to play." Her words were staccato, expressionless and automatic. She was like a robot programmed to say the same words on an infinite loop.

"Then, you should do what he said. Go home, Mrs. King. I am sure Lee will get in contact with you again," T. P. said in a fatherly voice patting her hands.

Hearing the words "Go home," brought Amanda back to the present moment. She realized that it was not Lee saying those familiar words to her this time. He would say them to her whenever he wanted to push her away for one reason or another, whether it was to protect her or himself. And it wasn't Mr. Melrose saying them to her either. The last time he had said them to her was after Lee's fake funeral. Instead, it was T.P. Aquinas this time, and now Lee was gone, again.

It was T.P. who was sitting next to her, trying to comfort her with his kind and concerned face. Amanda highly doubted whether T.P. could one hundred percent guarantee her that Lee would find a way to contact her again. Mr. Melrose had at least known of Lee's plan. T.P. didn't. At least, not that she was aware of.

T.P. might not know any more than she did, but at least she was certain he was a friend in a world that seemed to have fewer and fewer of those. So, instead of immediately obeying that familiar "Go home," Amanda abruptly asked him, "Do you have some paper and a pen?" T.P. produced the items from his briefcase and handed them to Amanda. She wrote down her contact information and returned them saying, "If you hear anything, anything at all, please contact me as soon as possible," she implored him.

"You will be the first, my dear," T.P. promised.

While saying her goodbyes and thank yous, Amanda clutched both of T.P.'s hands in hers as if he was now her last connection to Lee. Walking stiffly back to her car, the fading warmth of T.P.'s hands reminded her that if Lee were there at this very moment, his hand would be laced with hers. He would have put his hand on the small of her back as he guided her to the car and held her hand to help her into the seat. "What was the likelihood now," she wondered, "of having those briefest of touches with him ever again?"

Settling herself behind the wheel, she quickly pushed aside her fears of losing Lee and refocused her thoughts on how she could help him. "What final card did he want to play? What did he really want to tell me?" Amanda continued asking herself questions to prevent her helpless feeling. She drove slowly home, purposely going the longest way possible as Lee had instructed. "What was so important? What was he thinking not telling me what he was doing? What is he protecting me from by not allowing me to back him up?" Amanda could not believe or understand Lee wanting to tell her he loved her just like that without a reason.

Amanda's mind went through what-if question after what-if question. "What if something happened to him to make him say it?" Amanda quickly dismissed that because she knew she had to stay positive. Lee had taught her to always look for that silver lining. It dawned on her then that all the static on the line and the noise of the ice cream stand might have garbled his words. "What if it was just something that sounded like I love you?" Amanda began to wonder if she had just misheard him.

"It was probably just my own wishful thinking playing tricks on me because he had been seeing Sonja," she declared to herself. All his peacock dancing had made her mind dizzy with emotions. Amanda realized it was something she just wanted to hear from him for so long, and especially since they had been seriously seeing each other. Truth be told, she had formed those very exact words that night in the swamp, but she had known from the look in his eyes that night that he was nowhere near ready to hear them actually voiced. "What if he was ready now?"

Deciding she had misheard him, she began talking it out in her head, "What else could it have been?" She began with words rhyming with the "uv" sound but changing the first letter. "I am above you. I cove you. I dove you. I drove you. I shove you." As Amanda ran through those combinations, she quickly discounted each and every one. Switching tactics, she thought what if that "uv" sound was really "of" like in, "I am in favor of. I am fearful of. Go by way of. By means of. I am need of. I have none of. I will get to the bottom of. I grow out of. I owe you a." Amanda stopped there. "What does he owe me? An apology? For what?!" her mind yelled to no one when she landed on that one. She knew deep down his peacock dance with Sonja had been just part of the job to him. She trusted him and believed him when he had told her that.

Calming herself, she rationalized, "What if I heard the 'l' word wrong instead?" Amanda could now freely admit to herself that she was in love with Lee. She just wasn't sure yet if he was truly at the same place she was. He had pushed her away so many times over the years. They had been dating only a few weeks. Even just recently, when he had investigated the deaths of his parents, he had tried to push her far away at first. She had had to show him how to lean on her and trust her with his deepest fears.

Her thoughts began circling back again. Every time she had wanted to tell him how she felt, she had chickened out. She knew he wasn't ready. She feared to lose the best friend she had if she were to admit it first. She had wanted to ask him how he felt about her when he was under the influence of the drug, but she'd known that would be breaking a trust. Her instincts had told her that he did care deeply for her and her family. She could hear the way he had called her "My Amanda" with obvious affection. The question still remained for her, "What was he feeling for her now?"

"Okay, 'l' words," she thought refocusing, "I like you. I live you. I lead you. I leave you." With that word, Amanda pulled into her driveway.

After a quick family conference, Amanda told her mother she just needed a few minutes to collect her thoughts about her friend in trouble. Dotty understood and said she would let her know when Phillip got back. She headed upstairs to the sanctuary of her room to put her 'what-ifs' and 'what did he really say' thoughts to rest. Especially after that very last 'l' word that had popped into her head - leave.

As Amanda finally got to her door, she shook her head at herself at her merry-go-round of what-ifs on her mind. Lee Stetson was a handsome, debonair, international spy and playboy. This man, who had had four black books hidden in that eternally chaotic mess of a desk of his, had just told her, Amanda King, divorced housewife and mother of two, that he loved her. The merry-go-round of her mind was making her dizzy again. She wanted it to stop as her disbelief filled her yet again. Thoughts of the evolution of their relationship over the last three years spilled into her last questions. "What am I hoping for?" she wondered as her hand paused over the doorknob to her room before turning it. "A miracle?"

She turned the knob and pushed open the door. "Gosh!" She'd hoped for a miracle and here he was.

"Lee!"