17
Scotch Thoughts
Savior
It had been a great day! Lee entered his apartment with a spring in his step. Boy was it nice to be back home. The Watergate towers were the stuff of legend, but there was no place like home. And there was no feeling like bagging a criminal like Ballon and his goons. This was going to be an evening of kicking back and relaxing in his comfortable surroundings and Lee was looking forward to it like he hadn't in a very long time. After pouring his glass of scotch he took it into his bedroom to change out of his suit. He took off the jacket and laid it onto the bed and, as was his habit, emptied the contents of his pockets to place them on the top of his chest of drawers. As he pulled his hand from the pocket, in it he found the pin that Amanda had given him to use to disarm the bomb the day before. Billy had given it to him after all the evidence had been cataloged so that he could give it back to Amanda. After putting his robe on he put the Bombers pin into his robe's pocket and walked into the living room.
His mood had suddenly become less celebratory and more reflective, but the pleasure that he had felt as he came home had not dissipated in any way. Usually on nights like this he would have gone through his black books and lined up a night on the town with some attractive woman. But tonight he was really just happy to be back at his place and relax and reflect. This case had been stressful for many reasons, being so close to a bomb detonating was definitely one of them, but it hadn't been the only one.
His mind wandered back to the last time he had sat here on the couch with a glass of scotch. He remembered that during that occasion he had made a deliberate decision to allow himself a friendship. That was something he hadn't given room for in many years. And maybe he had been right to keep friendship at bay because the next morning Billy briefed him about the Ballon case and he'd had to lie to everyone and especially to Amanda about leaving the agency. He really didn't want to continue to lie to her the second time she had shown up at his "new" apartment to council him about his options, but his apartment was bugged and he'd had no choice. If there hadn't been so much at stake with this case he didn't know if he could continue with the charade. Telling her that they were former business associates knowing now that her friendship mattered was no easy thing to say. He knew it would hurt her feelings but he knew that protecting her was more important in that moment. He only hoped that she would understand when the whole thing was over.
And then Ballon threw down the gauntlet and had recruited Amanda onto the "team". He knew something like that was going to happen the moment Ballon had mentioned noticing how loyal and dedicated Amanda was to Lee. Lee was willing to pull the plug on the mission to protect her, but Blue Leader was not and so he ended up jumping on top of Amanda's station wagon and finishing the mission with just the two of them alone, with no back up… or at least none that counted.
At this thought he withdrew the Bombers button from the pocket of his robe. Passing it between his two hands he gently fingered the smooth side of it. "Go Bombers" he read, his mind drifted back to the baseball game he had met Amanda at while he was investigating David Benson. He wouldn't wear the Bomber's hat then, but he would keep this pin. This pin had saved many people including Amanda and himself. She hadn't run away like everyone else did. She had stayed by his side, kept her wits about her and had improvised with that pin. Lee had never felt more relieved or more proud of another person as he had with Amanda that afternoon. He also felt closer to her in that moment than he had with anybody in eons.
Loyalty and dedication. "You believed in me. You did what you did because you trusted in me," he had said. He had also told her that he didn't know anyone else that would go that far out on a limb for a friend. It had felt so good to be able to tell Amanda in some way how much he really did appreciate her friendship and her loyalty and dedication to their work together and to him as a person. The look on her face had made the risk he had taken in saying that worth it. It made him smile to think of it there on the couch at that moment. He took a small sip of his scotch and continued his thoughts. What had happened next? The two of them had caught Ballon, gotten it all on film, and had disarmed a live bomb. As they had quickly made their plan standing there by the car, Amanda had said that she would be alright because she had him. The truth of the matter was that they were both alright because they had had each other. If he hadn't had her with him, if she hadn't decided to stay there with him, there would have been no Bomber's pin, only a live bomb.
Lee had used many words to describe Amanda over the duration of this case. To Blue Leader he had called her "a civilian with two children, a mother and a mortgage." To Amanda's question about why she was the one Ballon had recruited to transport the bomb he had explained that she was "a suburban mother in a station wagon hauling a trailer." To Ballon's question about how the two of them alone would be able to catch him he had referred to Amanda as "a homemaker from Arlington." This afternoon though as the four of them sat in Billy's office going over the case, Lee thought Amanda was one of the most pleasantly suprising persons he had ever had the privilege of working with and knowing. There was a lot more to her than one would think and to top it all off she was his friend. Lee put the bomber's pin on the table in front of him, picked up his glass and contentedly prepared to enjoy the rest of his evening.