Billy stood waiting for a response from his charge wondering just how things had gotten so screwed up as he reflected on how his day had started out badly and had just proceeded to get worse.

He had walked into his office, sat down with his usual coffee and doughnut, and was just about to start reading his newspaper when his phone rang. He threw the paper down and answered it.

"Melrose, here," he answered a bit more gruffly than he'd intended.

"Morning, Billy." Dr Smyth said way too cheerfully for Billy's liking. That always meant something was up.

"What's up?"

"I think you need to take a look at your list of new recruits for the next round at Station One."

"Why? Is there something irregular there?" he asked. He wasn't in the mood to play one of Dr. Smyth's mind games today.

"Just forget the doughnut and look at that list, 'kay?"

Billy searched through the files on his desk until he found the right one."Okay, I've got the list in front of me. Now, what am I looking for?"

"Look in the Ks." Billy ran his finger down the page until he saw what he was looking for.

"You've got to be kidding!"

"Billy, you should know by now that I never kid about things like this," Dr. Smyth said.

Billy glared at the name on the list as if could make it go away simply by staring it down. He slammed the file folder down on his desk. "Damn!" he said, not quite sure what to do.

"You've got the full file there too on our new recruit. Now, here's how I want you to handle this one..."

Billy shook off the memory as he still stared at Lee, "Well?"

"Well, what," Lee snapped.

"You know damn well what," Billy's voice boomed back at him. "What's going on with you and Amanda and for that matter, with you and Amie?"

"There's nothing going on between me and Amanda," Lee answered, and then added with a pointed look, "And I mean, nothing. After ten years, you'd think I wouldn't have to beg anymore. I'm just...I'm just...I'm tired. I need a break." In truth, what he was tired of and needed a break from was the job and all the headaches that went along with it. He was tired of the agency always interfering in some way with that family life that he and Amanda had worked so hard to build.

"Well, I've got some news for you," Billy responded hotly. "You don't get a break from marriage. It's a lifetime commitment."

"Haven't you ever just wanted a break from Jeannie? I mean, don't you get tired of the day in, day out, same old boring routine?"

"Of course," Billy answered honestly, "But that doesn't mean that I start looking somewhere else." He looked at his friend, an expression of deep concern on his face. "When you're married for as long as Jeannie and I have been, you learn how to work around it, how to look for that little something that drew you together in the first place, what led to that spark. When I feel like I need that little break, I sometimes find that's when I'm the most productive here on the job while I try to work through it."

"Yeah, well, the difference is that you don't take your wife to work with you. I can't get away from her. We're together non-stop. We come to work together, we go home together, we eat dinner together, we help the kids with their homework together, we sleep together, but all we do anymore is sleep..." Lee rambled on, feeling as if he were channeling Amanda as he spoke, laying it on thick for Billy's benefit, lying his ass off as he loved every minute that he spent with his wife and with his family.

Billy frowned, wondering if he'd made a mistake in allowing them to retain their partnership after their marriage and bending agency regulations to do so, wondering too if he'd also made a mistake in allowing Amie to transfer in from the Chicago field office to take over the training department after Beaman's death. "And Amie? Are you and Amie..." He paused, finding it difficult to even think it, much less say it aloud. He recalled vividly when she'd first transferred having an outraged Lee storming into his office demanding that she be sent back to Chicago.

Monday, December 28, 1987

Billy was startled to see Lee barging into his office with a look of pure fury etched on his face. "Billy, you gotta' get rid of that...that...I don't even know what to call her, but she's gotta' go!" Lee demanded.

"Who? And go where?" Billy questioned.

"Amie!" Lee shouted in a tone that suggested that it should be obvious. "And I don't care where she goes. Send her to the New York office, send her back to Chicago, or send her to Siberia. She can go to hell for all I care, just as long as she's not here!"

Billy rose from his seat, gesturing with both hands in a downward motion. "Scarecrow, just calm down and tell me what's going on. What's your problem with Amie? Is she not doing things the way she should? She came highly recommended from Stu over in the Chicago office. In fact, he wrote her a glowing letter of recommendation."

"I don't give a damn. My "recommendation" is to give her a quick boot right back to where she came from. I can't work with her."

"Now, Lee, come on. I know that you've gotten used to working with Amanda, but this is only temporary and then she'll be solely in the training department," Billy said soothingly. He'd been afraid of this when he assigned Amie to help in the Q Bureau, that Lee would revert back to his adamant refusal to work with another partner without Amanda by his side.

"Just kick her over there now. I can make do with just Jonathan and if I need help from a trained agent, I can call on Francine. She's always got my back."

"Hmm," Billy responded. So, it wasn't about having another agent besides Amanda around, so what was it? He decided he'd better ask. "So, what exactly is the problem with Amie?"

"The problem? The problem, you ask! I'll tell you what the problem is. The bitch doesn't know how to keep her hands to herself, doesn't know how to take no for an answer!" He held up his left hand, indicating his wedding band. "She doesn't seem to get that this..." He held his ring finger out for Billy to see, "That this means something to me!"

"She made a pass at you?"

"A pass?" Lee repeated in an incredulous tone. "Oh, no, making a pass would be putting it mildly. This was no lousy pass. The woman practically threw herself at me and worse than that, she insulted Amanda!"

"Just how did she insult Amanda?' Billy asked gently, hoping that Lee was just blowing the whole thing out of proportion as he had a tendency to do.

"She said that I oughtta' be glad to have her around since Amanda..." using air quotes, Lee continued, "...'In her condition' couldn't possible take care of my needs." He began pacing furiously and ran a hand through his hair, halting abruptly, then began again, "Then she had the nerve to ask why I would want her to since I probably couldn't get my arms around her anyway! Amanda's carrying my children for God's sake! Doesn't she get how special that is, how miraculous? No, NO, instead she thinks that just gives me license to be unfaithful to my wife!"

"Lee, are you sure you're not just exaggerating?"

"Oh, no, Billy, I wish I were. That's why she's gotta' go. I can't work like that, not with her all over me every two seconds. She even locked the door and tried to pin me against my own desk." Billy couldn't help laughing at the mental imagery Lee's description had created in his mind causing Lee to snap, "What! You think this is funny? I will have you know that I am a happily married man!"

"Oh, I know you are," Billy replied still chuckling. "I was just thinking that someone finally gave you a taste of your own medicine."

"Oh, come on, Billy! I know I have a past, but I was never like that! If a woman said no, I just moved on. You know that! I was never one of those guys who was into women who played hard to get."

"Until Amanda," Billy pointed out.

"What? You're crazy! Amanda never played hard to get. Amanda's too honest for that! She'd never be a game player like other women!'

Billy laughed at that even harder. "And you call Amanda naive," He retorted between laughs. "She played you like a finely tuned fiddle and just like rats following the Pied Piper, you played right along."

"What's so funny," Francine asked as she entered the room.

"I'm glad you find this so amusing," Lee groused as he leaned across his boss' desk and glared menacingly at him. "Now, what are you going to do about Amie, because I swear to God, Billy, if you don't do something about it, I will! I don't care if she is a woman, I'll knock her damn lights out next time she tries something!" Lee relaxed his grip on Billy's desk and began pacing again, this time running both hands through his hair. "I don't need this in my life when I've got enough to deal with! Two teenage boys at home driving me crazy, an overactive five-year-old and a wife who's having trouble sleeping at night, so she's napping during the day and keeping me up at night too!" He halted in his pacing and stared Billy down again. "We had a great weekend celebrating our first Christmas as a real family and then I come back to work to face this! It's just...it's just too much!"

"I'll talk to her, okay?" Billy said in a conciliatory tone.

"Oh, no, no talking, the time for talking is long past, Billy. I've tried talking until I'm blue in the face! She just won't back off!"

"What's the matter, Lee? Is the generosity and stamina of the American housewife getting to be too much for you to handle?" Francine quipped.

"Can it, Francine!" Lee shouted. "I'm not talking about Amanda! I can handle Amanda just fine! I'm talking about Amie!"

"Well, you did say she was keeping you up at night," Francine countered with a salacious grin.

"All right, knock it off, both of you," Billy ordered. "Lee, I'll talk to her, okay? See what she says and take it from there. Will that make you happy?"

"Yeah...for now," Lee answered. "But if she so much as even looks at me wrong, I swear-"

"I got it, Scarecrow," Billy said with a nod.

Billy snapped himself out of his reverie, shook his head, took a deep breath and thought, just do it. "Are you and Amie involved," he finally spit out.

"What? No!" Lee said ferociously.

"Then why'd you make that comment about her when she was in here?"

"Look, it was just an example, okay?" Lee answered evasively, wishing he could just tell Billy the truth; that he was setting Amie up. He wished he could have run after Amanda when she'd bolted the way that he'd wanted to, wished that he could tell her how much he loved her, that he hadn't meant a word of it, that he was as attracted to her as he always had been, that there never was and never would be anyone else for him.

"Come on, Lee, it was more than that and we both know it. I saw the way you were looking at Amie."

"Well, let's just say that I'm keeping my options open," Lee replied with a nonchalant shrug.

"Don't you get it?" Billy scolded. "You don't have options when you're married. If you're really to the point with Amanda that you just can't take it anymore, that you can't find anything that you loved about Amanda is still there, then at least have the decency to cut her loose first. Have the guts to tell her to her face that you don't love her anymore and end it. Don't do this to her, not like this."

"Just stay out of it, Billy! I know what I'm doing!' Please, stay out of it, he thought. If you keep on the way you are, I won't be able to go through with it and make it convincing. Though he had to admit that Billy's words had given him food for thought on a way to convince Amanda that it was real, but he hated to take it that far.

"God, I hope so," Billy muttered softly.

"Just trust me," Lee said with a cocky smile.

Billy shook his head again hoping against hope that with their ten-year anniversary coming up, Lee would stop and think about everything he was about to lose if he continued on the self-destructive path that he thought he'd long ago abandoned. He thought of the reckless car chase over the weekend and his behavior today and couldn't help fearing the worst.

Billy was pulled from his thoughts by Francine barreling in the door marching straight to Lee and clocking him with a solid right hook to the jaw. "Just what in God's name do you think you're doing," she demanded.