By the end of the third day, Amanda had begun to wonder if she was the crazy one. She'd arrived to find Lee looking haggard as if he hadn't slept at all. His temper was hair trigger and he'd barely talk to her. The only good part was that he wasn't trying to escape his room anymore – all his energy was being poured into the notepads he was rapidly filling with lists and odd notations. As long as she kept him supplied with paper, she didn't need to keep watch on him like she had the last time he'd been hospitalised. That should have made her happy, but his behaviour was so erratic that it just ratcheted her anxiety higher.

Agent Bledsoe had been released so she only had Efraim to visit in between her checks on Lee. The doctors were concerned about his headaches being connected to his concussion and without anyone at home to act as a caregiver, they weren't willing to discharge him, to his obvious annoyance. He wasn't a very talkative person, but he seemed interested in how she'd ended up at the Agency and she wanted distraction from worrying about Lee so she'd told him the whole story. Hooked by her tale of accidentally becoming involved in a what she thought was a mugging at the train station, he laughed so hard at her description of taking down Soviet agents with bedpans that she strove to remember more details to add to the story. That story led naturally enough to the gunrunners at Connie Beth and their crazy leap across rooftops trying to escape.

"Oh it sounds funny now, but it was terrifying at the time," she scolded him as he laughed at her description of their Butch and Sundance moment. "We had to leave Francine alone over there and we weren't even sure where she was or how badly she was hurt."

"But she wasn't hurt. Was she?" he suddenly asked, seeing the confusion on Amanda's face.

"Well she wasn't badly hurt, but she did get shot in the arm," said Amanda. "Hadn't you heard that? I thought you two were friends."

"Emphasis on "were". But no, I hadn't heard that - I was in Dallas on training for most of last month," he answered thoughtfully. "But it does explain why she suddenly switched to wearing nothing but long sleeved shirts and blazers."

"How did you and Francine meet anyway?" Amanda asked. "You said something the other day about a gun battle on the Mall – that sounds way more exciting than my train station story."

"It wasn't as exciting but it was way messier," he said slowly. "Francine and I met when she tried to tear my shirt off." He laughed out loud at the expression on Amanda's face. "It all started with finding out my girlfriend was cheating on me on Valentine's Day and ended up with me flat on the ground covered in ketchup."

"Oh, this sounds good. Tell me all about it," Amanda settled further into her chair to hear the rest. She hadn't been friends with Francine long, but she knew that something was going on between these two. Francine had never said a thing about him, but Amanda had noticed the tiny grunts of exasperation every time Agent Beaman had abruptly changed direction when he'd run into them in the hallway or the time he'd actually turned tail and walked straight back out of the lunch room when he found them alone in there.

There was just something about Amanda, he decided later, that made you want to tell her things. He'd ended up telling her the whole crazy story of how a crushed hot dog had led to a Valentine's Day date with Francine, how an unexpected secondment from the FBI had turned into a permanent transfer to the Agency and how a speciality in Fabrication had turned into an entirely new job when Billy had realized his literal memory for detail made him an ideal information analyst. Somehow he'd even told her about the reason he was avoiding Francine – or letting her avoid him as he stubbornly continued to describe it.

"I mean, I don't even know why I'm the bad guy," he complained. "All I said was she must have missed me while I was away because she looked pale and we should go away for a weekend in Jamaica and she went all snappy and told me not to say stupid things. So I asked why it was stupid when it was the middle of November and she was bundled up in clothes like she was freezing all the time and she went all Ice Princess on me and didn't talk to me for the rest of the day. Or the next day. And then it got to be a thing and now it's been weeks."

"You didn't snap back?" Amanda's eyes were sparkling with some joke he didn't get.

"Of course I didn't. I was brought up not to argue with women."

"Well, there's your problem," she grinned.

"That's my problem? Being a nice guy?"

"She likes that you're a nice guy but she's a lot like Lee. Sometimes they just want to get ticked about one thing but they can't so they get mad at something else. The fight was about something else and if you'd snapped back, you probably would have found out what."

"Like what?"

That look of mischief went across Amanda's face again. "Information analysis is your department, Agent Beaman. I know you have all the information to figure it out." She chuckled again, "But I will tell you for free that the surest way to annoy a woman is to tell her she looks pale or tired." She glanced at her watch and sighed.

"Should you be checking in on Stetson?"

"I should be but I don't want to. He's just being such a jerk."

"Isn't he always? He was being a jerk to Francine the day I met him."

"I know what you mean, but this is above and beyond. Normally with me, he manages to keep his temper, but he's been snapping at me all day and calling me Mrs. King."

"He calls you by your name and that's a problem?"

"He's never called me Mrs. King before – so it's weird. Normally he calls me Amanda or Sundance when he's joking around, but it's like we have no history now. He talks to me like a stranger and nothing I say gets through to him." She sighed again, and went on, "Do you remember sitting downstairs listening to that fight he had with Francine about how he was going to go find me? Well, that same guy is sitting over there not even acknowledging I'm in the room most of the time. We used to joke about being like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and now he doesn't even look up when I call him that. He just stares at his papers and mutters about precision and success and following orders. And he keeps talking about basements and rats and dreams about falling and jungles. Nothing makes sense."

"Falling?" said Efraim, perking up. "Not sinking?"

Amanda stared at him. "Well, no, but he says it's like he's falling slowly through clouds but it's not cold, it's hot and humid like a jungle."

"I've been having those exact same dreams, Amanda. That can't be coincidence."

"No, it can't be," she breathed out almost in a whisper. "But what's causing them?"

"Do you remember when I said I thought someone was coming in my room at night? Stetson said that too right?"

"Yes he did – do you think it means something?"

"It must. Do you think you could –". He stopped abruptly as Billy Melrose walked in the room. He was suddenly overwhelmed with a wave of rage that rushed up and then, almost as suddenly, drained away, leaving him with a pounding heart and cold clammy feeling over his entire body as if he had just escaped something terrifying.

"Sorry, I haven't been in to check on you, Efraim but Internal Affairs has been keeping us all hopping trying to figure out just what the hell happened to Walt. How's the head?"

"Sore," he managed to get out, still struggling to slow his heart rate. "Not as bad as the elbow, but you know, they almost cancel each other out."

"How are you doing Amanda?" asked Billy genially. "Lee still giving you grief?"

"Well sir, we were just discussing that," she exchanged a troubled look with Efraim. "Maybe you should come see for yourself."

As she got up and started to follow Billy out of the room, Efraim hissed to get her attention. "Amanda, when you come back, try and get our charts from the nurses' station." She nodded to show she'd understood and then quickly headed for Lee's room.

She walked in and felt her jaw literally drop. Lee was smiling and joking just like his old self. The papers were tidied away and stacked on the bedside table. There was absolutely no outward evidence of any of the things she'd described to Efraim not ten minutes before.

"No, I'm doing great, Billy. I guess I'm getting used to hospitals – and there's a really pretty nurse so that's a bonus."

Amanda opened her mouth to comment on how Lee had sent that pretty nurse scurrying out of the room almost in tears that morning, but decided it wasn't worth it if she could keep him in the good mood he was in now.

"And lucky break that it's Amanda's week to volunteer at the hospital too," Billy went on, repeating the story they'd cooked up to keep Lee from realizing he was being babysat. "So at least you have company."

Only Amanda noticed the way his face went completely blank and his eyes went dead when Billy mentioned her name. "Yeah, that too," he answered robotically, not looking in her direction at all.

"How are you sleeping?" Billy asked. "Amanda said you were complaining about that." He really couldn't understand what Amanda was worried about. Lee seemed just fine to him, but for some reason, Amanda was standing in the doorway, rocking on her heels and looking like she'd rather be anywhere but here.

"Oh, it was bad the first night with my knee, but I slept like a log last night."

Amanda couldn't hold in the squeak of disbelief. "That's not what you said when I got here this morning," she muttered when both men turned to look at her.

"Oh that," said Lee waving a hand dismissively. "I was just grumpy because I hadn't had breakfast yet."

Amanda couldn't disguise her shock. She turned to look at Billy but he just looked back and shrugged. It seemed like a perfectly reasonable explanation to him – everyone knew Lee was grumpy when he didn't eat.

"But you never eat breakfast," she protested. "And you didn't eat breakfast because you threw most of it at that pretty nurse you just talked about."

"You're exaggerating, Mrs. King," said Lee stone-faced. "I was joking around and I just underestimated how far I could toss a muffin."

She'd had enough. She had watched Lee whip that muffin at the back of Kimmy's head like someone trying to hit the bulls-eye on a dunk tank and now he was convincing Billy that everything was perfectly normal. "Well, I don't think she saw the humour in it," she said shortly and walked out of the room.

She went to the nurses' station and waved until she got Kimmy's attention. The nurse walked towards her with an expression of dread, as if she thought Amanda was going to ask her to do something for Lee. Instead, she leaned across the counter and said in a confidential tone. "Remember how this morning I asked you not to get Mr. Stetson in trouble because he was just acting up because he was frustrated?" Kimmy nodded. "Well forget everything I said. When his boss comes out, I want you to tell him every little thing Lee's done today, okay? If you need me, I'll be in talking to Mr. Beaman." She whirled and started to stalk off before stopping and turning around abruptly. With a quick glance to confirm Kimmy had turned away and couldn't see her, she reached over and grabbed the agents' charts from the rack and scuttled back to Efraim's room.

"Oh good, you got them," he said immediately as she entered.

"Yeah, but they'll notice they're gone any second."

"Not a problem. Just give 'em here," Efraim snapped his fingers at her urgently. He flipped open his chart and quickly ran a finger down the page, then the next one and the next. He handed it back to Amanda and then did the exact same thing with Lee's chart. "Okay, I got it all – you can go stick them back where they belong."

"Seriously? That's all it took?" Amanda sounded doubtful.

"Yes, that's all it takes, now go!" Efraim made a little shooing motion at her and she moved hesitantly back to the door. Sticking her head out, she could see Kimmy now had Billy cornered near Lee's room, gesticulating wildly and obviously really enjoying venting about her horrible patient. Amanda took the opportunity to sidle over to the desk and slide the charts back onto the rack, before heading back to Efraim's room.

"This is getting ridiculous. People are going to think we're having a thing," she muttered at him when she came back.

"A thing?" Efraim glanced up from where he was scribbling.

"You know – a thing."

"Oh – a thing," he repeated sarcastically. "Yeah, don't worry, nobody would believe that."

"Well, thank you so much," answered Amanda, equally sarcastic.

Efraim looked up, with a smile. "I meant no one could believe it when I was dating Francine. They're not going to believe that a second beautiful woman would look twice at me." He turned back to his notepad and continued writing.

"Oh." Amanda wasn't sure how to respond to that. "Uh, Efraim, please tell me you're not doing the crazy notes thing Lee is doing. I can't handle it if you're both crazy."

"Don't worry, I'm just plotting times, and I think I've figured something out. C'mere." He waved her over and pointed to the timeline he'd drawn out on the paper. "The nurses do regular rounds all night and make notations on the charts, right? So Stetson and I both have gaps where the nurses should have checked and there's nothing there. Our first night, someone checked him at midnight, but then there's nothing else until 3 am, and that same night, I'm checked every hour until 3 and then there's a two hour gap for me. Last night, he was checked at 11 and then nothing until 4. I got checked at 3, but then nothing until 5. Now it's not like our rooms are miles apart, so they must do all the rooms, but the only reason I can think of that they wouldn't make a notation is if we weren't there and they thought we were being charted somewhere else. Make sense?"

"Yeah, it does." Amanda stared at the paper for a moment. "But you're never gone at the same time. And Lee is gone for much longer."

"I noticed that too," agreed Efraim. "And where are we, if we're not in our rooms?"

They stared at each other for a moment, considering that thought.

"So want to hang out with me tonight and see what happens?" asked Efraim, finally.

"Damn right, I do."