It was nearing seven o'clock when Lee finally made his way to the family's suite at the White House. He'd been intercepted at the gate by the guard who had told him the president was waiting for an update and that conversation had progressed into a conversation about the transition to the Blue Leader role.
Finally managing to extract himself from that, he hurried down the halls with a feeling of mild desperation to spend time with Amanda and the boys. He knew he'd probably missed supper but maybe he could talk Amanda around to letting the boys stay up to watch a movie or play a board game. He'd had no idea how much fun it could be to just be together and play a game. The boys still couldn't quite take him at Risk, but they could easily annihilate him at Monopoly. Amanda could wipe the floor with all of them if they played a word game.
Pausing outside the door, he indulged what had become a habit in recent months: listening to the sound of his family together. He heard Amanda's voice say something and then both boys were laughing. Taking that as his cue, he walked in and found all three of them sitting around the table so Amanda could oversee homework. Walking to his wife, Lee bent down and kissed her gently, ruffling the boys' hair as he sat down in the one free seat.
"How are you feeling?" He asked Amanda. The boys grinned at each other but didn't comment.
"I'm fine. I think I'll go into the office tomorrow."
"Think again." Lee invited mildly. His eyes flicking to his two step sons, he saw that they were clearly having trouble not laughing.
"Lee –"
"Amanda." Smiling, she gave in easily.
"Alright, but the next day I'm going in."
"I'll drive you myself." Lee promised, thinking that by doing so he could ensure she didn't put in a crazy day.
"Alright sweetheart. Are you hungry?"
"Starving."
"I'll call down to the commissary to order you dinner."
"Something light, please." Amanda nodded and headed for the phone.
"Alright you two," Lee said with mock annoyance. "What has you grinning like drugged up monkeys?"
"We just had a bet that the first thing you'd say when you got in was to ask mom how she's doing. You worry about her a lot." Jamie informed him.
"Yeah, it's adorable." Phillip piped up, obviously certain the word would offend Lee's masculinity.
"I've had a lot of practice." Lee said ruefully. "Do you guys need any help with your homework?"
"Yeah, I have to do an essay for my history class." Phillip said. "Mom said you could probably help me."
"What's the subject?"
"Modern dictators." He searched through the papers on the table and pulled out a sheet that he handed Lee. Lee smiled as he read through the instructions for the assignment. It was an interesting challenge; compare three different twentieth century dictators and why they qualified as dictators.
"Who were you thinking of?" Lee asked.
"Well, I guess Hitler's an obvious choice and mom said you know a lot about Stalin, so I guess he could be another one. I'm stuck for the third one though."
"You're right, Hitler is an obvious choice. That's exactly why I probably wouldn't choose him. A lot of your classmates will probably choose him but there are a lot of other choices. If you choose some lesser known ones, your paper will stand out and you will see different things. For example, if you consider Nicholas II of Russia with Lenin and Stalin, you can focus on some of the forces that made dictatorship possible in Russia in particular. Or you could look at different dictators on different continents. Maybe find one from Europe, one from Asia, and one from Africa or South America."
"Won't that be harder?" Phillip asked. "I don't really like history; it's pretty boring." Conscious of Amanda's oft-repeated caution that the boys looked up to him and took what he said as gospel, Lee took up the challenge.
"History isn't boring. It lets you get the thinking skills you need to do things." Both boys looked at him as if he was really pulling at straws to make his point. "Look, when your mom and I are building a case, we need to use history. Very recent, very specific history: but the skills are the same. We collect information about what happened from every angle we can and then we build up a story. When we hand that information over to the prosecutor, the first thing he does is use his history skills to see if he can come up with a different story that makes sense." Amanda smiled as she returned to the table.
"By that logic, everything is history." Jamie challenged.
"Yes, it is. No matter what you're interested in, you can only really understand it if you know what others have done before. Isaac Newton, the guy who discovered gravity, once said that if he'd seen farther, it was by standing on the shoulders of giants. He was talking about other scientists, but it's true of any field. You can't become a physicist now without learning about Newton and others like him. History is a short-cut so that you don't have to learn everything others learned the hard way. So it might seem kind of boring, reading about dead people, but what you should be really focussing on is how what those people did changed the world we live in today. People, even people like Hitler, don't set out to be terrible. They do what they think is right for the time and place they live in. Sometimes, they get it famously wrong. But there are times when what seemed wrong at one time comes to be seen as right later on."
"Wrong is wrong." Phillip insisted.
"Oh? Well, if you'd been living in the time of Galileo, you would have thought that it was wrong for someone to say that the Earth revolved around the Sun, instead of the other way around. But almost no one believes that now. And before that, people believed the Earth was flat." This introduction of science immediately captured Jamie's interest.
"Yeah, I read that Galileo actually was following in the footsteps of Copernicus."
"That's right." Lee bestowed a smile of approval on his younger stepson. Catching Amanda's smile, he suddenly felt the stress of recent days melt away. Not long after he'd met her, when he'd been assigned to drive a weapon-laden RV to Arizona, he had called Amanda to tell her that they would park the thing in her driveway. Amanda had scolded him, insisting that her family were normal people and wouldn't understand him. At the time, he'd smugly laughed it off but it had haunted him. Now, knowing that he had some part of a normal family and a normal life was a core of happiness that he carried everywhere.
"What?" Amanda asked, seeing his pleasure.
"Everything I need is right here." Both boys promptly provided an attitude adjustment by gagging loudly.
"Geez Lee!" Phillip moaned. "You can't be a super secret agent man and spend your free time mooning over our mom! It'll ruin your image!" Everyone laughed.
"Alright boys, that's enough of that." Amanda chided. "You work on your homework while Lee gets changed." Nodding, Lee accepted his marching orders. Changing into jeans and a sweater was part of his routine as soon as he got from work. It always made him feel like he'd shed his work identity and was once again a nice, normal suburban husband.
When he walked out of the bedroom, the homework had been cleared away and the boys were watching a movie while Amanda made the effort to carefully lay out a place setting for Lee to eat his dinner. Watching her lift the covered plate of the tray made Lee chuckle. It never ceased to amaze him the multitude of little things Amanda did for him that he'd never even bothered to do for himself when he'd been single.
Sitting down, he was pleased to find a small portion of pasta primavera and a grilled chicken breast waiting for him. "What did you have for supper?" He asked.
"The boys wanted to test the range of the commissary so they ordered burgers with the works." Amanda started, rolling her eyes. Burgers and pizza were probably high on the list of frequently requested food items that the White House catering staff regularly dealt with.
"And you?" Lee asked, knowing that such heavy fare was probably beyond her just yet.
"Vegetable soup with homemade bread."
Satisfied, Lee tucked in. They continued their conversation as he ate, discussing the kinds of things married couples the world over wrestled with, sort of. Their conversation about bills was focused on the clean-up service that would remove the remaining signs of Emily's murder. When they got onto the subject of house shopping, they were as much concerned by security as they were about location. When they discussed upcoming social commitments, it was as much about PTA nights as it was about Embassy soirees.
The subject they carefully avoided was work. Though Lee planned on giving Amanda a full update, he didn't want the boys to overhear his report. After he'd eaten, the whole family settled to watch the end of the movie. It was a full ten minutes before Lee realised that the boys were making full use of the White House film library. They'd managed to get a copy of The Trouble with Spies that he and Amanda had tried to avoid. Seeing his stepsons' glee at outmanoeuvring him and Amanda, Lee chuckled and warned them he'd get even some day.
After the movie was over and they'd settled the boys for the night, Lee and Amanda retreated to their own bedroom. Catching Amanda's arm, Lee pulled her close and just held her for a while. "I've missed you." He whispered, burying his face in the curve of her neck.
"I missed you too." Amanda whispered, running her hands up and down his back. It was a gesture he'd seen her use to console the boys when they were upset and he was surprised by how much comfort it brought. After a few moments, he pulled away and smiled. They quickly undressed and climbed into bed, cuddling in the darkness. "Are you ready to tell me what happened?" Amanda asked softly.
"I guess. I don't know much to tell." Lee admitted. "I'd promised Billy we'd be in first thing on Sunday so when you went into the hospital, I decided to go in. But I didn't want the boys and Emily to stick around in the house where one of them might have the idea of going up into the loft and finding Francine and Mabel. Even without meaning to, they might have given their presence away. I went in and brought Billy up to date. But then Dr. Penderson had said she would be in by ten so I wanted to be sure to be here when she was because you were doing so badly. I called Emily just before I left the Agency. I guess that would have been about ten or fifteen minutes before someone came to the house. Emily got the boys out of the house and then I don't know what happened but she was killed within minutes."
"Lee, it wasn't your fault." Amanda told him quietly.
"I should have been there." He said grimly.
"So should I." Amanda reminded. "If I hadn't been in the hospital, we both would have been at the Agency. We might have called a bit before or a bit after but either way, it wouldn't have prevented this."
"I know. But after you, she was my best friend and she's dead at least in part because I called her for help when you were in France."
"Lee, you can't blame yourself. Remember what you told me when Samira died? We do our best and we try to keep everyone we can as safe as we can. Emily was a good agent, Lee. But she knew the risks better than anyone. She wouldn't have blamed you."
"You're right. But I can't help it. It's my worst fear, you know. That something will happen to you because I brought you into this crazy –"
"Tutti-frutti business." Amanda supplied. Lee smiled, as she knew he would. The reminder of their toughest case when they'd been out in the cold, was as much of an anchor point as the memory of their wedding vows. "Lee, I told you when Sackers' men were after us and I'll tell you again. I'm an adult, I understand the risks and there hasn't been a day when I've regretted listening to that crazy waiter at the train that day." Knowing that he needed more than just words to help him find solace, Amanda took his hand and placed it on her belly. Though it wasn't necessarily perceptible to others, she knew that every day, she had had to loosen the waist on her maternity pants just that extra little bit. She was already at the point where her underwear seemed to perpetually roll under her belly.
Instantly distracted, Lee rubbed his hand lightly over her tummy. As they always seemed to do, deep in her body those two tiny scraps of humanity immediately moved towards the warmth of his touch. After a few moment, Lee looked up at her with a smile and a bit of moisture in his eyes. Propping himself up on his elbows, he reached for the bedside lamp.
Once in the dark, he began to kiss her. First on the lips and then slowly along her jaw and neck. As Amanda tilted her head to the side, his tongue flicked against her skin but he continued his path. Amanda's collarbone became a new erogenous zone under her husband's lips. He kissed his way down, over her breasts, past her belly. When he tortured the bend between hip and thigh, Amanda squirmed.
She knew he was heading for her feet and shivered in anticipation. To her surprise, Lee chuckled and leapt off the bed, leaving her squirming. Using the lights from the city to guide him, he went to his briefcase and opened it, returning quickly with a mysterious jar. Getting comfortable at the end of the bed, he pulled her feet into his bare lap before opening the jar. Amanda moaned.
"What is that?"
"Orange-infused coconut oil." Lee told her cheerfully. Scooping some out, he rubbed it between his hands and began a slow massage of her left thigh. Amanda decided that it was completely unfair for Lee to be so observant. Though she hadn't told him, since Zakir she'd gone absolutely crazy over anything citrusy or coconut. She didn't know whether she wanted to eat this lovely gift or just savour being covered in it. She considered this dilemma long enough for Lee to finish with her right thigh. When he seemed inclined to focus on a single knee, she made her decision.
"Come here." She ordered.
"But I'm not done yet." Lee protested, obviously amused by her tone of command.
"Just lie down. I'll show you." Amanda said impatiently. Chuckling, Lee complied, even handing Amanda the jar. Scooping some up, Amanda surprised Lee by moving so that they were end-to-end. Warming the oil in her hands, she slowly smeared it from the back of his knee to his ankle, taking time to massage his Achilles' tendon and ankle.
"It's like that, is it?" Lee teased, reaching for Amanda's feet. As her thumb pressed into his instep and the ball of his foot, Lee shivered. Feeling a bit evil, he deliberately copied everything Amanda was doing to him. It felt amazing.
After a while, Amanda sat up and pushed him onto his back, her lips and hips connecting with his decisively. Settling his hands on her hips, Lee slowed her down. He wanted to savour this reunion with her and he was always worried about harming her or the babies if they made love as they had before. He needed to be cautious even if she didn't.
Hearing her scream into his mouth even as her body clamped down on him was all he needed to push him over the edge.
A minute later, with Amanda held tight in his arms, Lee tumbled into sweet dreams.
