AN: Once again, I'm adjusting dates from airdates to fit with the timeline of the story. For example, in "Remembrance..." when Dotty took the boys to Williamsburg, it would have to have been on a weekend and per the script, three days passed from the time Lee was stabbed to the time he appeared in Amanda's den. Just fair warning to all me readers, since there is so much ground to cover, we are going to be spending a lot of time in 1984.
January 10, 1984
In a private room at Parker General, Billy blasted Lee. "If you'd have just listened to me for once about putting you in protective custody, we could've avoided this!" He pointed to Lee's bandaged shoulder. "And maybe...just maybe we could've caught this killer once and for all!" In truth, he felt a bit guilty himself because he hadn't bothered to check Lee's rental car before leaving him alone.
"Oh, come on, Billy! You know as well as I do that this guy wouldn't have made a move on me if I'd been holed away in some safehouse. It was bad enough being surrounded by the Agency goon squad." His thoughts reflected sadly back to Andy, who'd often been teased with his large build that he looked more like a mafia enforcer than an agent. He shook off the painful memory and continued to try to reason with his boss. "The way I look at it, we've got a perfect opportunity here. The killer doesn't know that he didn't kill me."
"You don't know that. You thought that about Fred too and look what happened then."
"You don't need to remind me of that," Lee snarled. He knew just how much he was to blame for Andy's death for realizing too late that the killer was still lurking. "That's all the more reason we should go with this. I owe Andy!"
Billy sighed and began pacing the length of the room. "What did you have in mind?"
"Simple. We let him think he succeeded. That way I can still investigate."
"You may be onto something there," Billy agreed and stopped pacing. "He'd never once stop to think that you might be investigating your own murder."
"Exactly!"
"It's going to be tricky though. If this guy does work for one of the intelligence agencies, as we suspect that he does, he'll probably also know where all our safehouses are. You'll need someplace to stay..." Billy grinned at him. "Some place that the killer would never think to look for you."
"Billy..." Lee drawled in a warning tone. "You can't be suggesting what I think you're suggesting."
"I mean, we already know that her mother's taking the kids to Williamsburg for the weekend, so we couldn't have come up with something better if we'd planned it. Unless you have a better idea?"
"No," he admitted. "But I'm going to have a hell of a time trying to talk her into it."
January 13, 1984
After the incident at the motel and climbing into bed with Amanda, Lee stood in her living room staring at the pulled-out bed. His thoughts were tormenting him because he couldn't get the memories of the last time they'd been in bed together out of his mind. He'd wanted her so badly that night, but she'd put up a fight over her boyfriend. "Ugh," he groaned. He started undressing as quickly as he could. He couldn't wait to get Dean's clothes off of him, the stupid layers and layers of plaid. The mere fact that she just happened to have some of his clothing laying around irritated Lee more than he cared to admit. That put uncomfortable thoughts in his mind about how she might have acquired them and it occurred to him that when he'd asked her point blank if she were sleeping with the weatherman, she'd told him it was none of his damn business. He winced in pain when he finally yanked the shirt off. He turned to examine the wound in his left shoulder and saw that the bandage covering it was soaked in blood. The trouble was that with where it was located, he couldn't quite see just how bad it was. As he peeled the bandage off he heard a gasp behind him. He turned his head to see that Amanda had just entered the room.
Amanda swallowed hard, not expecting to find Lee shirtless in her living room. Of course, she'd known that he'd have to get undressed for bed and she had come down, her first-aid kit in hand to see if his wound needed to be attended to, but she still couldn't help the startled feeling at seeing him that way. You're a Bedside Bluebell, she told herself. You can handle this. Just treat him like any other patient.
"You okay?" he questioned with a slight smirk at seeing the flustered look on her face.
"I...um...I brought this," she held up the box in her hands. "I...um...I thought you might need it." She nodded to his injury. "Turns out I was right. It looks like you busted a couple of stitches when you broke the bathroom door open at the motel."
"Yeah," he admitted.
"Well, sit down and I'll take care of it for you," she ordered.
"You don't have to, Amanda," he protested. "I can take care of it myself."
"No, you can't," she argued back with a nod to his oozing wound. "You need both hands for this kind of job with where it's located."
He started to protest again, but he realized that she was right. He couldn't do it alone, but the thought of her touching him was just too much right now. He sank down onto the pullout bed and resigned himself to the fact that he had no other choice. "Just make it quick, would ya'?"
"I'll make it as quick as I can, but quick could be painful too," she warned him as she sat down beside him to examine his stab wound. While she dabbed at it with an alcohol swab, she realized that the blood pooled around it made it look worse than it actually was.
Not as painful as this, he thought when he felt her nimble fingers on his bare skin. He let out a long, deep breath as he tried to suppress his urge to reach for her. Like that night in their pretend house, she was so close, yet he knew he shouldn't act on his desires.
Once she'd cleaned his wound, Amanda made quick work of re-bandaging it and then said with a firm nod, "There. All done."
He smiled at her gratefully and replied, "Thanks."
His warm smile sent a shock through her. She gave him a little nod of acknowledgement and responded, "You're welcome," but made no move to get up as they locked eyes.
"Am I?" he questioned and reached for her hand. "Welcome, I mean?"
"Well, you're here, aren't you?" She squeezed his hand.
Lee took a ragged breath and thought, what the hell? He leaned in and softly brushed his lips against hers and sighed when he felt hers part against his invitingly. He released her hand and cupped her cheek, lightly caressing her face with his thumb as he deepened the kiss.
Amanda let out a low moan at the feeling of his mouth on hers, his tongue lightly teasing her lips. This was so different from their last kiss when it had been merely to keep him from blowing his cover at the football camp. Her awareness of him had been heightened ever since they'd jumped into bed together in the no-tell motel.
It felt so good to be kissing her again for real and to have her willingly giving into it that Lee decided to press his luck further and gently pushed her back on the bed.
"Oof," Amanda gasped, breaking their kiss as she felt something beneath her back. She shifted to figure out what it was and that's when she realized that it was Dean's shirt. She grabbed it and scrambled off the bed. "I-I-I can't do this."
"Why?"Lee demanded as he too stood abruptly.
She shook the shirt at him and snapped, "THIS! This is why! I have a boyfriend, remember?"
"Well, you sure as hell weren't thinking about your so-called boyfriend two seconds ago when you were kissing me!" He snatched the shirt out of her hands. "Just why the hell do you have this anyway? You screwing him while you secretly want me just like you did with your ex?"
"OH!" she squacked at his accusation. She grabbed the shirt back from him and stomped out of the room and up the stairs before things could go any further.
January 15, 1984
Lee stared down his fire escape to the dead body of Russell Sinclair, feeling a great sense of relief that it was finally over. Andy's killer had finally been brought to justice and at his own hands. He'd learned from talking to Patsy and from researching the guy's medical files that the reason there'd been such a gap in the killings was that he'd taken time for more medical treatments, extensive surgeries to repair the damage caused by the explosion that had ended his acting career. Of course, if it had been up to Lee, he'd have had him locked up in an entirely different kind of hospital. The guy was clearly insane.
Once Lee knew who he was, he also learned through Billy from tapes of video surveillance that Sinclair had spent many late-night hours skulking around the Agency looking for files that had been carelessly left out on desks or computers left turned on and unattended. Most of the incidents were just brief moments where someone had gone to take a bathroom break or get a cup of coffee, but it was enough to give him access that he shouldn't have had. He was going to make sure that he spoke to Billy about tightening security around the building, even for those tiny moments. Sinclair had been smart because he'd learned to look for those tiny windows of opportunity. But now, he was dead. It was over and he could finally lay Andy to rest in his mind.
He was startled out of his thoughts by Amanda's panicked voice yelling, "Lee! We have a burning fuse in here!"
He took care of business and then proceeded to untie Amanda while they talked about him being back in the land of the living. Both tried to hide their disappointment that they wouldn't be able to have their 'normal' dinner together.
January 20, 1984
Amanda couldn't help the feeling of elation that washed over her at seeing Lee's triumphant shout of "It's over!" She knew she was being a little selfish to feel that way since she was still with Dean, but she couldn't help the extreme feelings of jealousy that had overcome her when she'd learned that Lee had once wanted to marry this woman. That had been coupled with a feeling of overwhelming sadness that he'd never told her about Eva. Could that have been one of those things that he deliberately kept from her in retaliation because she refused to talk about her divorce? Then, of course there had been that awkward moment when she'd walked in on them together. She still wondered what had been going on there. The pair had looked rather...intimate.
"So, it's really, really over?" She questioned. Please say yes, she pleaded inwardly.
"Oh yeah," Lee replied almost giddily as they began to walk together, his hand instinctively finding the small of her back. "I have to admit, I've always had this kind of unresolved feeling about Eva, but I never knew quite what it was."
"But you think you have it figured out now?" she probed gently.
"Yeah, I do," he answered succinctly.
"And?" she urged him to continue.
He stopped walking and turned her to face him, searching her eyes for any clue to the reason she might be asking. Was it because she was genuinely concerned as a friend? Or was she asking as a former lover? If he told her the truth, would it just be more ammo in her belt that she could use against him later? He took a deep breath and decided to trust her. "Well, it's because of you," he confessed solemnly as he took her hands in his.
"Me?" She looked at him curiously with a sideways tilt of her head. "How so?"
"Well, it goes all the way back to when we were kids getting ready to graduate from college and I asked you to marry me, but you insisted you were going to marry Joe instead."
"Ohhhhh, I see," she nodded in understanding.
He shook his head. "No, Amanda, I don't think you do. Not all of it anyway. I mean, you've heard what they say about me at the office; that I'm not the marrying kind." He let out a deep sigh. "I've heard it for so long that I've started to believe that it was true, only not for the reasons that the Agency rumor mill says." He paused, released her hands and looked away finding that he was unable to meet her eyes any longer with the way she was scrutinizing him. He didn't like feeling this vulnerable with her. That just always led to trouble
She lightly touched his shoulder and gently prodded, "I'm still listening." Don't shut down on me again, she urged in her mind as if she could somehow will him to open up.
He turned back to face her and switched gears to a topic that was a little bit safer ground. "Let me ask you something. Suppose that you and I had met like we did, but there was no Joe... If he hadn't been involved, would you have still said no when I asked you to marry me?"
"I-I...uh...I don't know." She was so thrown by his question that she didn't know how to answer. "It doesn't matter because Joe was involved. In fact, if he hadn't been, I doubt we'd have met at all. If you recall, the whole reason I went to that party was to get my mind off of my fight with him...or to be more accurate, what I thought was a break-up at the time."
"Okay, so suppose your girlfriends dragged you to the party just because it was the last one of the year kinda like my frat brothers did with me because it was my birthday?"
"Well, I don't know. I do remember that I promised you a chance and I probably would have given you that chance if Joe hadn't come back, but marriage? Maybe not for a long while, maybe not ever. It's hard to say. We might just have had a short-lived romance and gone our separate ways after graduation. Besides, if it hadn't been for that fight with Joe, we might not have our son. I don't know that I'd have spent the night with a guy I just met if I hadn't been feeling vulnerable and needy and less than desirable."
"I see."
When she saw his face fall, she clarified, "I'm not saying that I wouldn't have still been attracted to you, but...I don't know...Unlike a couple of my sorority sisters, casual sex was just never...it just never felt right to me...or for me."
"So, the answer's no," he responded curtly. "Do you...? Never mind. Doesn't matter."
Sensing the question he'd wanted to ask, Amanda felt the need to answer, "As I've told you before, I don't regret that night, not one bit. You made me feel incredibly special and I've always remembered it that way. It's made even more special by the fact that we created a child together, but we barely knew each other then. Sometimes, I feel like even with as many years as we've drifted in and out of each others' lives, we still don't know each other all that well. And let's be honest here, would you really have asked me to marry you when you did if Joe hadn't been involved and you weren't desperate to keep me from marrying him? Or for that matter, if we hadn't spent the night together? There are just way too many variables to consider. If you take those two things off the table, then I'm just a girl you met once at a party and maybe danced with. Would you really have seen me as someone you wanted to spend the rest of your life with when you were only 22?"
"Okay, that's a fair question," he admitted, brightening a bit. What she said made sense and it did do his heart some good to hear her refer to Phillip as our son. That was the first time she'd ever really done that. "I have to admit that I don't know if I would have or not if you consider all those...uh...variables." They were both silent for a long moment as they thought about things and how that one moment in time had altered both of their lives forever.
"So, why don't you think you're the marrying kind?" She returned to his earlier statement to break the awkward silence. "I mean, I don't know that that's true. You've asked me twice, not counting our cover a few months ago and you were going to ask Eva. That sounds to me like a man who wants to be married, so why would you think that?"
"You're right. It's not like everyone thinks at the office," he acknowledged. "They talk like I have some big aversion to marriage. Just to be clear, I don't. I've always wanted to get married someday...maybe raise a family." He felt a lump form in his throat as he thought of the missed opportunities with his son...and Amanda. "I think the real reason that I'm not the marrying kind is because women don't want to marry me."
She saw the sorrow in his eyes and couldn't help wondering if he really had that low an opinion of himself. "Oh, I don't think that's true," Amanda countered in an attempt to console him. "You just haven't found the right one yet." As soon as she said it, she wished she hadn't because she wanted him to think that she was the right one.
"Or maybe I met the right one and she married someone else instead," he fired back with a pointed look. At seeing her acknowledge his meaning, he quickly looked away, "But you're gonna' marry that Dan guy, right?"
"Dean...and I don't know. He certainly is persistent, though, I've got to give him credit for that." Too persistent, she mentally added.
"Maybe I should've been too. Then there wouldn't have been an Eva or a Joe or a Dean," Or a Dorothy, he mentally added, but he wasn't quite ready to shared that part of his life with her. "Maybe then, I wouldn't have had it happen to me twice." He linked his arm with hers and they began walking again.
"Hmm...maybe," she mused, her thoughts in a whirl over this new information. She thought back to Christmastime when he'd finally started to open up to her about his childhood. In hearing the sadness he expressed while talking about it, she felt more certain than ever that she'd made the right decision in not allowing Joe to coerce her into dragging the boys all over the place. She took a quick peek at Lee and wondered just how much more she could get him to share before he turned radio silent on her again. "So, while we're being honest here, I have a question."
"Shoot!"
"When I walked into the house and you and Eva were...together. It...uh...it seemed like you two had..." She stopped walking forcing Lee to stop with her. "What I mean is that..." Why was it so hard for her to talk about sex with a man she'd already had sex with? She couldn't even say the word 'affair' in his presence without stammering and blushing like some innocent schoolgirl. Because you have had sex with him, an inner voice scolded her.
"You wanna know if I slept with her," he stated baldly and then grinned at her. "I'll show you mine if you show me yours."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, you never did answer me when I asked if you were sleeping with the weatherman," he reminded her.
"Meteorologist," she corrected. "And if you really must know, the answer is no. Not lately anyway, even though he's been persistent in that area too."
"Not lately? So, that means that you...uh...you have in the past?"
"Lee, come on. I am still a single woman. I have needs and desires just like anyone else."
"Oh, I know that all too well," he quipped.
"Well, can you honestly tell me that you haven't slept with some of those girls you date?" she challenged him.
"Okay, you make a good point," he conceded. "But not as many as people seem to think. I mostly just...date so I don't have to be alone. It's different for you. You at least have your family to go home to so the loneliness is a bit more bearable, but me? I go home alone to an empty apartment most nights."
"Hmm...I guess I never quite thought about it that way. And you're right, having my mother and the boys there, it does make it a bit more bearable to be alone."
"And Dean too?" he questioned. "Does he help with that too?"
"Well, he's not..." she sighed. How could she admit to him that she'd made a mistake in getting involved with Dean? "We're getting off the subject here. I answered your question about Dean, so it's only fair that you live up to your end of the bargain."
Lee sighed and nodded, resigning himself to the fact that she wouldn't let it go until she had an answer. "The answer is no...on Eva, I mean. I didn't sleep with her. I admit, I was tempted to and she...she definitely wanted to, but I put a stop to it."
"But why?" she asked curiously as she tried to hide the relief she felt. "If you wanted to and she wanted to, why didn't you?"
"She was married and even I don't cross that line." He gave her a pointed look. "You should know that from the night of your father's funeral."
"You're right. I should have known. I'm sorry," she apologized. "But if she hadn't been?" Lee was stone silent and just started walking again. There it was, that brick wall again, but the silence gave her time to think on her own situation. Her thoughts turned back to his questions about Dean. It struck her that for the first time since they'd been back in each other's lives, Lee had said his name correctly when asking if Dean helped make being single more bearable. She knew he didn't. In fact, having Dean around just drew home the fact of what she was missing out on by being with him. There was just no spark, no passion. Her mother had called it perfectly when she'd said she knew her fires weren't fanned. Amanda also knew deep down that she wouldn't marry him for all the money in the world and she knew now that Lee was back in her life, she'd never sleep with Dean again, so why was she still hanging onto him?
February 1, 1984
"Well, here I go," Amanda sighed as she sat in the passenger seat of Lee's car down the block from her house, but she made no move to get out.
"Do you want me to come in with you? I could...I don't know...tell your mother I'm another doctor, maybe a specialist or somethi-" He broke off abruptly as he saw the weatherman's car pull into Amanda's driveway. "Shit," he muttered under his breath.
"What?" Amanda questioned having caught Lee's expletive, but then when she saw the direction of his gaze, she saw just what it was about. "Oh, great!" She rolled her eyes in irritation. Just what she needed.
Lee chuckled. "I thought you were serious about this guy. I mean, wasn't that why you were supposed to meet his mother for lunch...to start discussing wedding plans?"
"Oh, stop," she scolded. "You know very well that I don't plan to marry him." Despite the near-death experience, she was very glad that she'd missed the planned lunch. She found Evelyn to be just as snobbish and icy as her ex-mother-in-law.
"Then why are you still leading the poor guy on?" he inquired with a hint of mischief in his tone. While he'd suspected for a long time that Amanda would never go through with marrying the weatherman, internally he was relieved to hear her say it out loud. "You know, I could just go tell him that you're madly in love with me and that would end it right there. I've been known to play the spurned lover pretty well." He'd sure had a lot of practice with her over the years.
"Oh, no, you don't. I'll take care of this myself," she stated firmly. Thoughts of Lee's earlier comment that he just didn't see them together flashed through her mind as she got out of the car. The truth was, she didn't see them together either and it was time to let Dean know that...now.
She hurried across the street and up the sidewalk to her house, calling out to Dean just before he could make it inside. He turned and raced toward her, meeting her halfway up her driveway and hugging her tightly. "Oh, Honey, are you okay?" He asked in a worried tone.
"Fine," she nodded and pulled back from him. "In fact, I have all my memories back and now that I do, it's time that you and I had a serious talk."
"Sure," he readily agreed. "Why don't we go inside and we can talk about anything you like."
"No, Dean," she shook her head. "Right here, right now. Not in the house." She looked down at the ground, trying to find the right words to say what needed to be said.
Dean took her hands in his and questioned, "What is it? What's so important and why can't we talk about it inside where it's comfortable?"
She pulled her hands from his and answered honestly, "Because it's too comfortable. What I mean is, you're too comfortable there...I mean, here...I mean..." She sighed and tried to start again. "What I mean is that I've let you come and go as you please, let you just walk right into the house, let you...well, get comfortable."
"What's wrong with that? We're in love, aren't we? Isn't that what couples in love are supposed to do."
She licked her lips nervously and shook her head. "No, we're not. At least, I'm not."
"I don't believe that, Amanda," he crooned consolingly as he lightly stroked her face. "You're just not thinking clearly because of the accident." He reached to pull her closer. "Give yourself a few days and things will be back to normal and we can start talking about wedding plans with Mother again."
"Dean, stop!" She pushed forcefully on his chest to give herself some breathing room. "Contrary to what you think, since this accident happened, I've never thought more clearly about this! This is just too much! You, your mother, MY mother, you're all just putting too much pressure on me and I can't take it anymore! I don't wanna' marry you!"
"Not right now," he corrected her. "I get that. You're scared, I know, because of what happened with your first marriage."
"Not now, not ever! I don't want to marry you at all and it has nothing to do with being scared or with my first marriage. I only told you that so you'd back off a bit, but all it did was make you try harder and I can't...I just can't."
"If it's not fear, then what is it? Why won't you marry me?"
There it was. The real question that she didn't want to answer and where her real fear lay, the fear of hurting him, but now was no time to be wishy-washy as she had been with him in the past. "Because I just don't love you," she said simply. When she saw his face drop as if she'd slapped him, she felt the need to say something...more. "I care for you and you helped me through a very difficult time, but it's like I already said; I'm just not in love with you and I can't be. As hard as I've tried, and believe me, I've tried, I can't make myself feel something for you that just isn't there. You don't wanna marry me under those circumstances. I'd never make you happy. You'd never make me happy and I want to be happy again. I want that for both of us, but that just can't happen if we're together."
He took a deep breath and questioned, "So, you're not just turning down my proposal; you're breaking up with me too?"
Amanda nodded. "It's time, Dean. Long past time. Neither of us is going to find that one special person to make us happy if we keep seeing each other. Don't you want that? To find someone who loves you with all her heart? Because, I promise you, it isn't me. I just can't give you that."
"Is there someone else?" he asked. He'd noticed that she'd grown more and more distant over the past few months and he now wondered if that was why.
"No," she denied. When he gave her a skeptical look. "Okay, yes. Well...maybe...sort of. I don't know."
"Your ex-husband?"
"No. Look, I never wanted to hurt you, but I recently became sort of reacquainted with an old college classmate and I don't know anything for sure, but I feel like there might be something there with him. Something I've been missing for years and I have to find out."
"So, you're dumping me for a slim chance with some other guy?"
"No," she answered honestly. "I'm breaking up with you because even if this guy isn't the one, I know now that you aren't the one. You and me...we're just not right for each other and we never will be." When she saw the deep sadness and longing in his eyes, she repeated, "I really never wanted to hurt you like this and I'm sorry." She couldn't take looking at him anymore and turned away. That was when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a familiar Porsche still sitting at the end of the block. She shook her head as she thought, always the stalker, and then turned her attention back to Dean.
He shook his head and responded sadly, "No. Don't be sorry for being honest." He sighed and then with a pinch of venom in his voice, he added, "I just wish you'd done it sooner instead of leading me to think we had a future together when I was really nothing more than your rebound man." He stalked to his car, got in and peeled out of her driveway, tires squealing.
Amanda let out a sigh of relief that it was finally over. She knew he'd been good to her and the boys, even going so far as to pick out the perfect gifts for the boys at Christmas, the football outfit for Phillip and the junior weather bureau kit for Jamie, but it had to end. While she'd been honest with him that she hated hurting him, a huge part of her felt as if an enormous weight had been lifted as she walked into the house and prepared to face the music with her mother.
Still sitting in his car across the street, Lee grinned broadly as dull Dean's boring Buick raced past him. "About damn time," he crowed as he finally pulled away from the curb.