Disclaimer: Scarecrow and Mrs. King belongs to Warner Bros and Shoot the Moon Productions. The ACM Kid was written by Gregory S. Dinallo.
Author's Notes: It's been a long time since I've been inspired to write any SMK, but a teeny, tiny plot bunny settled in my brain, and I just had to get it out. This little one shot is set post-series, and shortly after a point where their marriage is common knowledge (pick your own explanation for how it would have come out in a hypothetical season 5, though since I'm an impatient person, it would have been really early in that season), and Lee has moved in with Amanda.
A Rolling Stone Gathers No Dust
"Wake up, sleepy head," Amanda's voice broke into Lee's dreams. "Time to get up."
Opening his eyes and turning his head, he saw his wife, fully dressed, standing by the door with a smile on her face.
"It's too early," he said. "Come back to bed. We can celebrate having the house to ourselves this weekend."
She smiled at him. "We did quite a bit of that last night," she said. "And we still have another day before the boys come back from Joe's and only a few boxes left to unpack, and then you'll be fully at home."
Shifting up on his pillow, Lee said, "I am at home, as long as I'm with you." He looked up at her with his best puppy dog eyes, not really wanting to get out of bed.
Amanda rolled her eyes slightly, though her smile was still soft. "And when everything is put up and away," she said, "we can enjoy our time alone at home all the more. Come on, it's just a few items left. All the hard work is done. This is the easy stuff."
Lee groaned slightly before saying, "All right. Just give me a minute to wake up, and I'll be down."
~o~O~o~
After breakfast (and yes, Amanda had eventually convinced him of the many benefits of actually eating that meal, though the fact that he wasn't in his twenties anymore may have contributed to the matter), Amanda disappeared into the laundry room, while he went to tackle the last of the boxes in the living room.
Opening up the flaps, Lee reached in and pulled out and unwrapped his Tibetan Ram's horn from its newspaper cocoon. As he set it down into the space cleared for it, he was reminded of the time Amanda had cleaned his apartment and filled it with flowers. He'd been so annoyed then. Glancing over at the record collection next to the stereo with an empty rack ready for his own to be added. Oh, yeah, then there was her peculiar method of "alphabetizing" his albums. The Rolling Stones under S for "Stones, Rolling." He shook his head at the strangeness of that. It was one of the reasons he'd always deferred to her getting the albums whenever he came over, even if it went against the grain. But then Amanda had always managed to make herself an exception to every rule.
However, this was his home too now, and Lee figured that he should actually take the time to get familiar with her way of ordering things before just settling on a his and hers layout. Curious, he started near the end of the line, pulling out a few and working backwards looked at the groups: The Supremes... Steppenwolf... Simon & Garfunkel... Rolling Stones... The Righteous Brothers...
"Whatcha doing, Big Guy?"
Lee turned to see his wife leaning against the counter at the edge of the kitchen.
"Finally taking a look at your record organization," he said. "And amazingly, the Rolling Stones seem to be located among the R's rather than the S's."
"Well, of course, they are," Amanda said, walking over to the sofa. "Who would put them anywhere else?"
"Hmm, I don't know," Lee said with a smile, moving towards her. "There was this one housewife turned secret agent who decided to alphabetize them under S. And they weren't the only group that got that treatment. It took me a good half hour to get everything back in order."
Amanda grinned, as she put her arms around him. "Oh, Lee, you know I just did that to tweak your nose a bit." She playfully tapped the side of his nose.
"And why would you do that?" Lee asked as he slid his arms around her back.
"Because at the time, a certain spy had a bad habit of taking my help for granted and sticking me with the dirty jobs. And what better way to get back at him than killing him with kindness."
"Oh, I can think of a few," Lee said. "But your way was at least cleaner." He paused. "And more aggravating since I had to be grateful for the cleaning..."
"But annoyed at the reorganizing," Amanda replied. "You can thank my mother for teaching me that trick back when I was a rebellious teenager."
"So that's where you picked it up," Lee said. "You know, I should have recognized the Dottie West touch, but then I didn't know her so well then."
"You didn't know me too well either," Amanda said.
He looked into her eyes. "I don't think I'll ever know you well enough, Amanda," he said, softly. "That will take a lifetime."
"Well, good thing I have one to offer," she said, "but, you know..."
"Know what?"
"I expect one in return," she said softly.
He leaned in and kissed her. "Oh, I think I can manage that one."
The End
End Notes:
It's no secret that I really hated the Stupid Mystery Marriage plot device the series used in Season 4. It never made sense to me, as since they were legally married, it would take very little for the Agency to discover the fact, and frankly, considering people thought Lee and Amanda were lovers long before they even admitted their feelings for each other, it wasn't exactly a reasonable safety measure either. The only plus was that at least it was better than them having roadblocks thrown in the way of their relationship (I'm looking at you last season of Remington Steele). But in any event if I'm going to write anything post series, I'm going to ditch that idiot plot device and have them just deal with being married spies with a family.
And I know this is short, but I've been suffering from general writer's block and am trying to get back into the swing of things in multiple fandoms. So I hope if nothing else this tiny bit of fluff can prompt a smile.