Disclaimer: "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" is the property of Warner Bros. and Shoot the Moon Productions. I enjoy occasionally borrowing their characters for entertainment purposes only.
Chapter 1: Irrational Fears?
A hungry Jamie entered the kitchen, eager to fix himself breakfast, his teenage appetite having returned with a vengeance. He and Phillip were supposed to be spending the weekend with their father and Carrie, but he hadn't been able to stop thinking about the tale-end of a conversation that he'd overheard immediately before Joe picked them up. As hard as he tried, he couldn't stop the angst-inducing exchange he'd heard from repeating in his mind to a point where he was thinking of little else.
He fervently wished that he hadn't overheard his parents' conversation, and in the months since his mother had revealed her marriage to Lee, and their true careers to the family, he'd fully embraced the couple as his parents. He loved his father, but much to his surprise he'd come to feel that Lee was dad-material in a way that Joe King had never been. Admittedly, it had taken him a long time to bond with Lee, having initially felt threatened by the man's growing place in his mother's life.
Despite his distant and occasionally borderline hostile behavior, Lee had continued to reach out to him. That alone had surprised the sometimes moody adolescent, but what had truly shocked him was the eventual realization that they were more alike than different. The older man had readily accepted him as is, and didn't compare him unfavorably to his far more gregarious brother. Although he was convinced that he tried to hide it, his own father seemed to prefer Phillip's company to his.
The events of the evening during which Amanda had revealed her secret life to her mother and sons were forever seared into Jamie's memory. Even months later, he wasn't sure whether he was more shocked that she had secretly remarried or that she'd become a spy…err, intelligence operative. It was surreal; his normal mom had spent the past four years doing things that he'd only seen done in the movies. He was proud that she and Lee routinely risked their lives in order to serve their country, but seemingly unlike Phillip, that knowledge shook him to his core. His brother found their affiliation with the Agency to be "way cool"; didn't he realize that it meant that one day it might cost them their lives?
That general concern and having overheard his mother say that their current case was getting "very ugly"; with Lee concurring that "events are rapidly spinning out of control" led Jamie to feel an impending sense of doom. If an experienced agent like Lee was truly concerned about this case, than surely the pair was facing grave danger. The teen quickly regretted his decision to confide in his brother, when the older boy derided his concerns by observing that he "worried like an old lady".
Shortly thereafter, Jamie had persuaded Joe to drop him at home based on the pretext that he wanted to spend a few hours working on a school project with a friend. Joe had reluctantly agreed, having no way of knowing that his son really wanted to go home to maintain a solo vigil while waiting for the agents to return home from an overnight stakeout.
Upon being dropped off, Jamie let himself into the house and was about to drop his duffle bag on the floor, when he heard his grandmother's voice in his head, admonishing him to take his belongings up to his room. Slowly trudging up the stairs, he wished that she hadn't gone away for the weekend. He wouldn't trouble her by telling her what he'd overheard, but he instinctively knew that he'd draw some solace from her mere presence.
I'm not a little kid anymore; I can face waiting for Mom and Lee by myself. He was so lost in his own thoughts, that he didn't hear the unmistakable sound until he was about to pass the open door to her…their bedroom…the shower was running. They're home, they're okay! As the dread that had been plaguing him drained away, he idly wondered why the bedroom door was open. Because they think that they have the house to themselves. Wanting to give them some privacy, he quickly turned around and went back downstairs.