Sunday Morning, 8:00AM

Two hours later, after dropping Dotty off at the hospital and dealing with the metro cops who'd arrived at the scene of the accident, Lee was back at the agency, pacing furiously, his frustration growing. "Damn it!" he growled running both hands through his hair. "I wasn't trying to kill the son of a bitch, just stop him! I was hoping we'd be able to get some information out of them!"

"Well, it's too late to do anything about it now," Francine said. "They're both dead and you can't get anything out of a corpse." Lee glared at Francine. "Lee, look, I'm not trying to be insensitive here, but it's a fact. It's also a fact that you've got bigger things to worry about and it's a fact that you were supposed to stay away from this case. Another fact for you, Dr. Smyth ordered us to stay off Amanda's case too and only work it from the escaped prisoner angle."

"Yeah, well, while you're spouting facts, my wife is lying comatose because of these bastards while I'm being accused of putting her there and I can't do a damn thing about any of it! I can't help her! I can't get these charges of my back and worst of all, I can't even get to the guys who really put her there!"

"Leave that to us, Lee," Billy said as he entered the room. "We've still got a couple of leads."

"Well, leads aren't good enough! I want McKay! I want Williamson! They have to pay for what they did to Amanda!"

"And they will, but you're not going to do any good if you tangle with the local PD the way you did today," Billy said barely holding his anger in check.

"Is it my fault that they got to the scene before the agency did?"

"In a way, it is," Billy said bluntly. "You should have called me sooner. The second that you even suspected that it was the same guys, you should have called. Instead, you led them on a high-speed chase through the streets of DC, with a civilian in the car no less! If you'd thought with your head for once instead of your heart, one or both of those guys might still be alive and we could be questioning them instead of notifying their next of kin. As of this moment, I want you out of here!"

"What are you saying, Billy?" Lee said a look of pure fury etched on his face.

"You're suspended, indefinitely. I don't want you setting foot in this agency again until this case is closed, you got me?"

"Billy, come on!" Lee protested.

"No arguments, Scarecrow! Now, Joe King is upstairs waiting for you. He needs to talk to you about your defense. That's what you should be worrying about right now. Now, go!"

"Fine!' Lee said as he yanked open the door to Billy's office and stormed out.

"Don't you think that was a little harsh?" Francine said worriedly.

"Francine, don't," Billy said. "You know that I have a job to do and he..." He sighed and sank down into his chair. "I can't have him going off half-cocked and jeopardizing this case. Not with Dr. Smyth breathing down my neck."

"But you know Lee. You know that he's likely to just do it anyway, suspended or not."

"That's why I called Joe. He'll keep him busy for a while," Billy said.

"I hope you're right," Francine said the concern evident in her voice as she glanced out the window just as Lee exited the bullpen and turned the corner out of sight.

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Dotty sat by Amanda's bedside, gripping her hand tightly as she recounted the tale of her adventure with Lee. "You'd have been so proud of him, the way he handled that van that was following us, the way he went out of his way to make sure that I was safe. I wonder, does he do the same with you when you're...I don't know the right words...chasing the bad guys together?" As she gazed at her unconscious daughter, it hit her just how much she'd kept from her and her anger flared again. "Damn it, Amanda!' she swore, something the rarely did, but this time she couldn't help herself. "Why did you have to be so secretive? I get the spy stuff and why you kept it hidden, but why your marriage? Why?! Lee keeps trying to get me to understand, saying you were trying to protect the boys, but it just...it just makes no sense! Wouldn't they have been more protected if you were all living together as a family should?"

She released her daughter's hand and began pacing back and forth alongside the bed. "And what about protecting you?" She paused in her pacing to look at her daughter gesturing wildly at her stillness. "I mean, look at you! Look at the shape you're in! I completely understand you and Lee wanting to spend some alone time together, but my God, Amanda, why couldn't you have been doing that at home together all this time? I'd have been perfectly willing to make myself scarce or to look after the boys for you to give you that time together if only...if only you'd just confided in me."

Dotty sat back down in the chair as tears slid down her face. "Why couldn't you have just told me the truth? If you had...if you had, you might not be here now fighting for your life. You wouldn't have been leaving Lee's home in the middle of the night and those men...those men who did this to you might never have hurt you." She sighed as she picked up her daughter's limp hand once again, squeezing it tightly in her own and said, "Lee is just beside himself. You should see the poor man. He blames himself, you know, just like he blamed himself for you shooting back in February." She shook her head and said, "You were already married to him then and even though you almost died neither of you even thought to tell me the truth. I don't know how to handle this, Amanda, but I do know one thing. Lee loves you with all his heart."

"Lee," Amanda whispered.

"Amanda?" Dotty said hopefully. "Amanda, Darling, can you hear me?" She squeezed her hand, hoping that she'd squeeze it back, but she found excitement flooding through her when there was a slight response. She exited the room and hurried to the ICU nurse's station, quickly getting the nurse's attention. "Someone needs to check on my daughter now," she demanded.

"Mrs. West, what is it?" the nurse questioned.

"She was talking," Dotty explained. "She...um...she...I think she might be coming out of this."

"It's not that uncommon for coma patients to mumble or whisper in their sleep," the nurse said. "That doesn't necessarily mean that there's any improvement in her condition."

"I don't care if it's uncommon or not. Someone needs to check!"

At her shouting, the physician who'd been caring for Amanda came running and asked, "What is it?"

"My daughter...she...was talking...and she...she squeezed my hand...please can you...can you check on her?" When the doctor looked alarmed, Dotty said, "What is it?"

"I'll check on her," he said. "Just...just wait here, okay?" He then made his way into Amanda's room, Dotty hot on his heels.

"No, I will not wait here! I want to know what's going on with my daughter and I want to know now!'

"Mrs. West, there's nothing that you can do for her," the doctor said just as a nurse entered behind them and she began to check Amanda's vital signs. "Just let me take care of her."

"I'm not leaving this room," Dotty said and stubbornly folded her arms across her chest.

"Fine, but steer clear and let us work," he replied as he began to unwrap the bandages from Amanda's head.

"Lee," Amanda whispered again wincing slightly as the doctor gently lifted her head from the pillow to examine her head wound.

"See, there," Dotty said. "She did it again."

"I know, Mrs. West," he said. "This isn't the first time." He then turned to the nurse and said, "Call down to radiology. We're gonna' need another CAT scan to see if we need to put her out again."

The nurse nodded and left the room while Dotty looked at the doctor questioningly and said, "CAT scan? Put her out? What do you mean?"

"Come on, Mrs. West," he said as he gently took her by the arm and urged her to sit down. "Didn't the ER doctor tell you what we've been doing for her since she was moved to Intensive Care?"

"No," Dotty replied. "He...um...he said that there wasn't much that could be done, that her body just needed time to heal...something about severe head trauma."

"That's true," the doctor confirmed with a nod. "With trauma like this, especially with an open wound such as the one she came in with, we try to do everything we can to keep the risk of infection down, keep the chances of brain swelling down to a minimum. I want another CAT scan on her to determined if the swelling in her brain has decreased at all."

"Okay, but I still don't understand what you meant by putting her out," Dotty said in confusion.

"Mrs. West, your daughter has been drifting in and out of consciousness since she was moved up here. She even tried to sit up and get out of bed once, late last night. We've been giving her anesthetics to keep her under, trying to prevent her from moving around too much and increasing the swelling in her brain. Not only that, but it constricts the blood vessels in the brain to help keep the swelling down."

"Doctor, are you telling me that you've purposely been keeping her out of it?" Dotty asked incredulously her eyes wide with shock.

"Yes, Mrs. West," the doctor replied with a glance at Amanda. "This is a medically-induced coma."