Chapter 1

At 7AM, clock radios in two different households that were separated by an entire city went off. Each owner of the clock quickly rolled over and slapped it shut, then rolled back over to stare up at the ceiling. Each lost in their own thoughts of the events of the previous night. It had been a long night that had resulted in each of them stumbling into their respective beds out of sheer exhaustion.

Lee and Amanda had been tracking down an arms dealer for the past two months. They had finally received a tip from a member of Lee's family, that they would be able to find him in a small house an hour outside of the city. They had the house staked out for a week before they had finally spotted him. Quickly Lee had run out of the van that had been hidden in the shadows across the street, leaving Amanda to radio in for back up. Once she had done that, she ignored Lee's usual command to 'stay in the car' and took off after her partner.

Quietly she crept along side of the house, keeping close to her partner. Once they noticed that their backup had arrived, Lee and agent Johnson quickly broke down the door and stormed inside of the house. Unseen by anyone in all the excitement, their suspect had slipped out the back door and was making a mad dash into the woods that surrounded the house. Amanda spotted this and grabbed one of the metal buckets that had been carelessly strewn down on the ground and swung the handle and hit him over the head knocking him out. Billy quickly ran over to Amanda and congratulated her on a job well down as he reached down and cuffed their suspect. They spent the rest of the night into the wee hours of the morning, in debriefing and then typing out their reports of what had happened that night.

Now both Amanda and Lee were in their respective homes, each missing each other, but knowing that soon they would be reunited again. Quickly Amanda got out of bed and got dressed. Silently she opened the door to her son's room and looked in on them making sure that they were both ok, marvelling at how quickly her son's were growing up.

School was starting in a week and Joe had wanted to spend some quality time with them. He had asked Amanda if he could take the boys camping for the week, and Amanda had readily agreed. She was happy that Joe was taking on a more active role in the raising of their children and supported his decision to spend more time with them. Joe and Carrie would be picking them up that morning so they could get a head start on the traffic. Glancing around the room, Amanda noticed that the boys still hadn't packed for their trip with their father and she silently grimaced.

"Wake up sweethearts." She called out to Jamie and Phillip. "Your father is going to be here any minute and neither one of you is packed for your trip."

"Awwww mom, just a few more minutes," mumbled a sleepy Phillip from underneath his pillow.

"No. It's time to wake up. If you had packed up your things properly from last night like I had asked you to ,then you could have slept in. Now up and at it!" Amanda said with more force in her voice as she yanked the blankets and pillows off her sleeping sons. She grinned as they both moaned and groaned about having to get up so early when it wasn't even a school day, and she left them to get ready.

Amanda quickly walked down the stairs to the kitchen to prepare a quick breakfast and to turn on the coffee maker, when the doorbell rang. Opening it she found Joe standing outside.

"Come in Joe. You're early."

"I know, but Carrie was so excited about spending time with the boys that she couldn't sleep. And if she doesn't sleep, then I don't sleep."

Amanda laughed at her ex-husband and lead him into the kitchen.

"Are the boys up yet?" Joe asked.

Bang, bang, bang.

"Mom, Phillip won't let me in the bathroom. I can't get ready."

"Shut up worm brain."

"Mom, Phillip just called me a worm brain."

"I think they're up," Joe chuckled softly. "I'll go look after them," and he quickly headed up the stairs.

The next half an hour was spent in a flurry of activity as Amanda prepared breakfast for the boys, and Joe helped to get them packed and stored their things in the car. Dotty woke up with all the commotion, and came downstairs mumbling into her coffee that Amanda should have given birth to nice quiet girls. All too soon the boys raced out the front door yelling out "Bye mom, love ya," Amanda laughed and waved good bye to them from the front door and watched them drive away.

"Amanda darling, since the boys are going to be with Joe for the week, I'm going to go and visit Aunt Lillian." Dotty said as she tried to decipher yet anther bananagram in the daily newspaper. "Captain Kurt has volunteered to fly me there on his plane this afternoon."

"Really mother? I was hoping that we could go see a movie today. I'm off for the weekend." Between the boys, Lee and her job, she had barely spent any time with her mother.

"I'm sure that you won't be lonely dear," her mother hinted as she looked at her daughter over her cup of coffee. "I think a Mr Stetson will be more than happy to accompany you to that movie that you wanted to see. Who knows with the house empty you never know what kind of questions that he could ask you."

"Mother," Amanda exclaimed knowingly at her mother.

"You never know dear. I met a psychic at the fair the other day and she said that there is a little blue box with a pretty blue ribbon in the future for you. Then maybe you'll get a chance to wear some of those things I see you've been looking at from Rebecca's Secret."

"Mother, I have no idea what you're talking about!"

"Amanda dear, I may be older than you but I'm not blind!" Dotty exclaimed with a knowing chuckle and began to walk up the stairs. Before Amanda could respond back the phone began to ring. "Tell Lee that I said good morning, and that I hope to hear an announcement soon!"

Amanda looked slightly amused and mortified as she answered the phone. It was Billy.

"Good morning Amanda. I know that today is your day off, but something urgent has come up and I need you here within the hour."

"Yes sir. I'll be there."

"Good. I'll see you then. Um Amanda I haven't managed to get a hold of Lee, if you see or hear from him can you please pass on the message that I need to meet with him as well?" Billy asked with a knowing smile.

"Uhh sure." Amanda said not sure how to respond.

"Good. I'll see you in a bit then." And with that Billy hung up.

Tap, tap, tap. Amanda looked over to see a grinning Lee at her kitchen window, and gestured for him to come in.

"Morning Mrs Stetson." Lee said as his arms encircled his wife.

"Good morning Mr Stetson, and keep your voice down a bit. Mother is upstairs." Amanda leaned in for a quick kiss with her husband. "I thought you were going to come over early this morning to help get the boys ready for their camping trip with Joe?"

"I tried but there was some accident on the road, and it took forever to get here. Can I make it up to you?" Lee said as he gave his wife a heart melting smile and began to lean down for another kiss.

"Ohh good morning Lee. Why am I not surprised to see you here this morning?" announced Dotty as she waltzed into the kitchen. Giving them a knowing smile, as Lee quickly took a step back from Amanda.

"Good morning Mrs West. " Lee said, while looking like his hands had been caught in the cookie jar.

Amanda just sighed and said "Mother, aren't you supposed to be packing?"

"I am darling. I am. I just came downstairs to grab my suitcase. I hope you two have a nice weekend."

"Is she going away for the weekend?" Lee asked hoping to spend some alone time with his wife. They had spent precious few moments together since they had been secretly married earlier that year.

"She's going to visit Aunt Lillian."

"Really," Lee said in his sexy baritone voice. He tried to pull his wife into another hug.

"Hold that thought big fella. Billy just called he wants us in his office in an hour."

"But it's our weekend off" Lee began to complain.

"I know that, and you know that, and so does he. But he said that something came up and he couldn't contact you to tell you about it. Now come on lets go. The earlier we go, the sooner we can come back home." Knowing that it was useless to argue with his wife, he followed Amanda as she called out a good bye to her mother and out the door towards the car.

Inside Billy's office

Billy held up a hand as he said on the front edge of his desk. Both Lee and Francine were seated in front of him and had begun to complain about being dragged into work on their day off. Amanda just sat quietly in the office in a chair by the door.

"People, people I know. But this is important. It's my day off as well. You think I'm enjoying having to come in on my day off as well?" Billy asked. When he saw that he wasn't going to get any further complaints from either of them he continued.

"Rusnik has contacted our government saying that he wants to defect." Billy said.

Lee whistled. "I never thought I would live to see the day when that would happen."

"Who is Rusnik?" Amanda asked.

"Rusnik is a Russian scientist. He helped to create some of the most deadliest nuclear weapons Russia has. It would be a blow to the Russian intelligence network if he were to defect." Lee answered.

"That's right." Billy said. "We have word that Rusnik will be at a retreat this week here in DC."

"I'm surprised that the Russian government would let Rusnik out of the country." Francine wondered out loud.

"The Russian government's official stand is that they aren't developing any nuclear weapons, and that Rusnik isn't a part of their defence department. But our intelligence tells us that Rusnik can travel, but they have him under close observations. If he were to defect, then that would be a huge loss for them."

"Sir what exactly are we supposed to do?" Amanda asked.

Billy started to smile, and handed each of them a blue folder with more information about their assignment. "Well Rusnik will be attending a couple's retreat with his wife this week. Lee, Amanda your cover is to play a newlywed couple. You both are on this retreat to learn how to communicate so that you don't end up divorced." Billy pretended not to notice the look that was exchanged between his two best agents. "Francine, you're going to play to part of an unhappily single woman who needs to learn how to attract the right man."

"Billy, I don't need to learn how to attract a man. Thank you very much!" Francine said indignantly. She ignored the giggles of Lee of Amanda beside her.

"Now Francine I am well aware that you can attract a man, but we need to cover all the bases. I'm even getting Jeanine involved in this. We're playing the part of a married couple that needs to learn how to spice up their love life." When Lee raised his eye to this, he added "Jeanine has been at me for taking her on a trip this year. She wants to spend more time together. Now I just can combine both in one shot!"

Lee laughed out loud at that, and asked "when do we leave Billy?"

"This retreat is for a week. We all check in tonight. You all have the necessary information of the location and time in your packets." Billy said. "I'll see you all there. Keep on your toes people. We may not have a lot of opportunities to communicate amongst ourselves, and I don't want anything to go wrong with this. Getting Rusnik to defect will be a great feather in our caps." And with that he dismissed the group.