Author's Note: I want to thank everyone who has been reading and reviewing. The story has been amazing to write. I hadn't initially planned on it being this long. The original goal was just to get it to the point that Lee realized that keeping their marriage a secret was a mistake and end it there, but it took on a life of its own and I now plan to take up to at least the series events that followed the wedding and how they could have gone differently if their marriage hadn't been closeted. Future chapters will contain some dialogue from those last few episodes of the show and some will have content from the original scripts that were never filmed, having been changed to accommodate for Kate Jackson's bout with breast cancer.
Amanda sat idly flipping through a magazine in the security office while waiting for her new badge and ID to be created and laminated. She pretended to be thoroughly engrossed in the latest fashions Princess Di was wearing and ignoring the whispers by the ladies in the ID office. She glanced at a picture of her in a stunning spaghetti strap white ball gown and felt a tinge of sadness. I'll never be able to wear something like that again, She thought as she placed a hand to her chest. There were no longer bandages there, but there would be an ugly scar for the rest of her life. She thought of the spaghetti strap cocktail dress with the pearl buttons hanging in her closet, the one she was so proud to have made herself, the one that Lee liked so much and had told her she looked beautiful wearing. She let out a deep sigh knowing that it would now hang there in the back of her closet forever. She knew she'd wouldn't feel comfortable wearing it because she'd never look beautiful in it again. She was marred for life. She was jarred out of her thoughts by a voice saying her name.
"Hi, Amanda," Efraim Beaman said. "Welcome back"
"Hi Efraim," She said smiling pleasantly. "Thanks, but I'm not officially back on the clock until Monday morning. What brings you down here?"
"I've got six new trainees starting Monday that I have to get IDs for," He said indicating the large stack of file folders in his hands. "Speaking of which, if you're ready to continue your training, I've got an infiltration class starting on Monday as well. You haven't been through that course yet, not that you really need it as long as you've been here, but there are still a few open spots if you're interested."
"Thanks, Efraim. I'll talk to Billy about it before I leave."
"Good," he said before turning to girl behind the counter and dropped the stack of folders in front of her. "I need these ready by Monday for my new class." As the girl nodded, he turned back to Amanda. "So, what are you doing down here," he queried.
"Oh, I had to get a new ID. Just waiting for them to get it finished."
"A new ID? So, does that mean the rumors I've been hearing about you and Stetson are true?"
"And what rumors would those be, Efraim?"She asked with a teasing smile. "You know there have been rumors and me and Lee for a couple of years now." She hid her grin behind the magazine she'd been holding.
"Well, one of the guys in crypto was calling you Mrs. Scarecrow when I was down there earlier."
Amanda laughed. "Mrs. Scarecrow, huh?" she said with a smile. She could live with that.
"So, is it true?"he prodded. He couldn't believe his ears earlier when he'd heard the rumor, had thought it was just more of the office grapevine growing out of control, especially when he'd heard it had started with the old bat upstairs. He knew they'd had more that a professional relationship for a while now, especially the way Lee had reacted when she'd been suspended erroneously three months ago, but couldn't quite imagine that Amanda King could have caught the most notoriously uncatchable bachelor.
Before Amanda could reply, one of the girls as the counter called out to her. "Mrs." the girl hesitated "..Um...Stetson?" Amanda tossed the magazine aside, rose from her seat and walked to the counter."I need your signature here," the clerk said. When Amanda dutifully signed her new name, Amanda Stetson, the girl said. "I'll also need your old ones so they can be destroyed." Amanda unclipped the ID from her lapel and pulled her badge out of the pocket of her cardigan, sliding the accompanying ID out of its sleeve and handed them to the clerk who in turn handed her the new ones. She clipped the ID to her lapel and took a moment to admire the other one before sliding it into the slot it belonged in.
"Does this answer your question, Efraim?" she said with a smile as she held up her badge the same way she would when identifying herself as a federal agent to someone she was questioning.
Efraim took a moment to peruse her badge before she put it away seeing her new last name on it large as life, "I'll be damned," he said shaking his head. "Well, congratulations."
"Thanks," she said placing a light kiss to his cheek. "Seeya' Monday!" She retrieved her purse and the rest of her paperwork from the table next to the chair she'd just vacated and was on her way out the door of the Security office when she nearly ran headlong into Francine.
"I'm glad I caught you," Francine said with a worried look on her face. "I have to talk to you."
"Ok, but can we walk while you do? I have a lot of other errands to run."
"Sure," she said as they exited the security office and started down the hall, Francine following Amanda's lead.
"You look tense, Francine, what's up?"Amanda inquired.
"Lee asked me to come find you. He just had a rather heated argument with your ex and..."
"Let me guess, he's not taking the boys this weekend," Amanda said with a sigh as she stopped walking momentarily to look at Francine. When the other woman only nodded Amanda asked, "Did he say why?" Amanda sighed again in frustration at her ex-husband. She'd thought that the two weeks he'd spent with them during her hospitalization would have been the catalyst for him to build a better relationship with their children, but apparently she'd been mistaken.
"No, I don't know why. I only heard Lee's end of the conversation and he wasn't very forthcoming with the details. Just wanted me to find you to let you know that he took your car to go pick the kids up from the school."
"Joe didn't even call the school to tell them to have the boys get on the bus instead of waiting for a ride?" Amanda started walking again, picking up her stride just out of irritation forcing Francine to pick up the pace to keep up with her.
"Apparently not," Francine said sheepishly.
"Well, I'm going to have to have a talk with him about that," Amanda said. She and Lee had been really trying for the last week to get the boys settled into their new family dynamic and a regular routine after all the chaos of the prior weeks, but that was going to be hard to do if Joe didn't keep up with his regular visitation schedule. While the boys were getting older, they still need to have some sense of stability in their lives. That more she thought about it, the angrier she became. "Damn!"Amanda spat out crossly as she jabbed her thumb at the down button on the elevator she'd just reached.
Francine was taken aback. She didn't hear Amanda swear very often. "Are you ok?"
"Not yet, but I will be once I get my hands on Joe King! I could kill him for this."
"You and Lee make some big plans for the weekend without the kids?"Francine said in an evocative tone. Amanda just glared at her. "Sorry!" she said holding her hands up in surrender. "You just look like you're ready to put your hand-to-hand training to use on your ex."
"Look, I appreciate you letting me know all this, Francine, but this is not about any plans that Lee and I had for the weekend. This is about the plans that Joe made with the boys that he's not keeping." She stepped into the elevator that had just opened, Francine stepping in behind her.
"I don't understand. I always thought you and your ex were still friendly, a little too friendly for a divorced couple, in my opinion."
"That's been changing little by little ever since Lee and I told him that we were getting married," Amanda explained. It was true. The night that she'd first met Carrie when she and Lee had shared their wedding plans with him had been extremely awkward, even more awkward than the lunch with Joe when he'd given her the news that he was getting married. He'd said he was happy for her with a smile, but that smile didn't quite reach his eyes. Instead there had been a look of concern there and she knew instantly that it had to do with concern for the boys because of their perilous nature of their job. He'd cancelled his plans the following weekend to be a chaperone on the boys' school camping trip which was why Dotty had gone instead as Amanda hadn't been given enough notice to take the necessary time off work. In the end, it was good that she'd been in town because she was able to help save her fiancé's life from a deadly toxin. She shuddered a little at the memory of it. She couldn't imagine where she'd be now if she'd gotten into that aqueduct even ten seconds later. So much had happened in the interim that it was hard to fathom that all that had occurred only a month ago, a week before their wedding day.
"Wait a minute!"Francine said in astonishment. "You told your ex-husband that you were getting married, but nobody else?"
"We felt we had to, Francine. He's the father of my children and the only person in our lives outside the agency at the time who knew what we really do for a living other than Lee's uncle." As she said those words, she made a mental note to remind Lee to call Colonel Clayton and tell him the news. "We knew that us getting married could potentially put the boys at risk and their father had a right to know about it."
"That makes sense in a way, I guess. Listen, when you're done with all this stuff that you're doing..." Francine said gesturing toward the new ID clipped to Amanda's blouse, "...Do you need a ride home since Lee took off with your car? The way he talked he didn't sound like he was coming back here today."
Amanda smiled as she realized Francine had noticed the new name on her ID and shook her head. "I appreciate the offer, Francine, but I don't need it. Lee's car has been parked in the garage since before we left for our honeymoon. I have a set of keys to it, so I'll be fine."
"He gave you a set of keys to his precious 'vette? Must be true love," She quipped
"Oh, stop it, Francine!" Amanda said with a laugh.
"I'm sorry, I'm just having a hard time hearing Lee's name in the same sentence with the word honeymoon."
"Well, if it's any consolation to you, we didn't really get much of a honeymoon. The day after our wedding, We had a early flight to Fresno, then almost as soon as we drove our rental car into Las Palmas all hell broke loose and you know the rest."
"Yeah, I was sorry to hear that happened to you."
"I spent the first two weeks of our marriage in bed, and not the way I had planned on," Amanda said with a sassy grin. "It's just been this past week that I've really been getting back on my feet, although I was hoping to spend a little less time off my feet this weekend, if you know what I mean."
"Amanda!"Francine said in shock. "I've never heard you talk this way. I think Lee must be as bad an influence on you as you are a good influence on him."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because, for as long as I've know you, you always seemed so, I don't know the right word here, repressed, reserved, maybe? They way you dress, the way you talk, you just always seemed so inhibited, I guess is the word I'm looking for."
"Inhibited, Francine? Really? That's what you think if me? Just because I don't flaunt my sexuality like some other women here that I could mention..." she said with a pointed look at Francine's short skirt, "...that doesn't mean that I'm repressed or inhibited or whatever other word you choose to use."
Francine thought back to her conversation with Lee about Amanda's passion and his comment that Amanda didn't have any sexual hang-ups and said, "Ok, I stand corrected."Francine said before they lapsed into an awkward silence. Way to go, Desmond, Francine scolded herself. Every time that she thought she and Amanda were starting to bridge the gap that kept them from being real friends, she had to open her big mouth and undo it. Amanda's comment about flaunting her sexuality had struck a nerve. She looked at Amanda's outfit, calf-length skirt, conservative Oxford blouse and cardigan in subdued pastel colors versus her own skirt with a hemline that rested just above her knee and bright purple v-neck blouse. Even their accessories were vastly different, Amanda's opaque pantyhose with sensible pumps compared to her own sheer black hose with high-heeled strappy sandals. Yes, they were different, but did Amanda really think that meant that she was flaunting herself? She didn't feel that she dressed inappropriately. She wondered if maybe that's why her own prior relationship with Lee hadn't worked out or his relationships with many other women. In the past he had always seemed to be involved with women who were openly unrestrained when maybe what he had needed all this time was someone who would let their inhibitions down just for him and him only. She thought she should say something to Amanda to break their stalemate. "Amanda..."She began just as the elevator arrived on the desired floor.
"Sorry, Francine, I've got to get to payroll to make sure they get my name change and that they're going to pay me for my vacation time. Excuse me," Amanda said as she forcefully stepped out of the elevator, jostling Francine's arm in the process and not even bothering to apologize. It was rude, she knew, but Francine had insulted her so she didn't much care. She had enough to worry about with Joe bailing on the children once again. She was going to have to have a serious conversation with him and he wasn't going to like it one bit.