AN: 'Been busy—phone problems continue, in the process of starting work at a hospital, and welcomed an animal into my life. Lots of things. Please, continue to review if you can. It really does help. *heart*
/
That evening, Lee took it upon himself to prepare supper. It was only fair after imposing himself. He fell back on an old seafood dish, wrote out a list, and had Amanda pick up the ingredients. She put her foot down at a request for saké. He wouldn't call the end result five-star cuisine, but Amanda appeared to enjoy it.
He watched with some amusement as she shoved forkful after forkful in her mouth. His own chopsticks pinched a dainty piece of meat.
"Either you worked up an appetite at the grocer's or I'm a better cook than I thought," he said.
She swallowed sheepishly. "It's very good. Where'd you learn to cook Japanese food?"
"Japan," he said offhand. "It's not the same without enoki mushrooms. They complement the taste of the squid. Want some more?"
"Please."
He tipped the wok so that a bit of ika tumbled onto her plate. Nothing remained but the smell and the tension. They sat opposite each other, and whenever Amanda bent, he tossed a longing look across the table. The accommodations may have been Billy's idea, but he intended to make the most of them.
Repair the rift, so to speak.
She'd rebuffed him back at Bo Johnson's ranch, but even then, he'd felt the lust. He felt it then and he felt it now. It wasn't gone by any stretch.
Just festering.
A quiet cough carried over the table. "By the way, Phillip and Jamie loved those gifts you sent."
The corners of his lips lifted and his cheeks creased. Ah, that. He had to call in a few favours for that.
"Who, me? Couldn't be me. I was in hospital at the time, remember?"
"Uh-huh." She finished chewing and changed the topic. "This is really rather interesting. It's a domestic side of you that I didn't expect."
"A guy's gotta eat, you know."
"I guess I assumed your little lady friends broiled you a lamb chop every now and then."
Was that a smidgeon of snark that he detected?
"Some of them aren't so little. And you can't always count on them being able to cook. That's one advantage of bumming around the world half my life—learning how to throw together a meal."
"Then there's all your restaurants and pubs," she remarked. There was a familiar glint in her eye, and Lee sensed a ramble coming on. Like lightning before thunder. "I hope you don't eat at nightclubs. Finger food is not good for a grown man on a regular basis. But I guess that's not an option when you're deceased. You probably miss that. Although, the break might be good for you. All I'm saying is that normal people don't-"
"Amanda, brevity is a blessing and a virtue," Lee said, curt but not unkind.
"All I'm saying is that real, regular people do not go out every other night of the year. They stay home, make hamburgers, tuck in their kids, watch television…"
"Since when is anything about me regular?"
"Touché."
She abandoned any pretence of poking her food, and after a moment, Lee plucked up his plate.
"If you're finished, we should get going. I want to check out the King Edward Apartment Hotel before they rent room twelve-o-four," he said.
"Isn't that where Jean-Claude was killed?" Amanda asked.
"Yeap."
"Don't you think the police already searched it?"
"How much attention do you think they give to the murder of a scrap-metal dealer living in a hotel for transients?"
"But Jean-Claude was an agent. The French government must've told the investigators something."
"A minimum. France can't acknowledge his identity without compromising future missions," he said. His tone left no room for further questions.
He lugged the wok from the table to the island while Amanda rounded up utensils. She filled the sink and dunked dishes in the suds. Lee came up beside her. Soon they fell into a sort of rhythm. He scraped, she laved, and they both dried.
Their closeness was disconcerting but not unwelcome.
"Hamburgers at home sounds kinda nice," he said, taking a chance. "We could pair them with a Beaujolais…"
She hid a hint of a smile. "We?"
"Of course. It'll be you and me in this house. Alone. No restaurants…"
She fended him off with a flick of her sponge and a sprinkle of water. "In your dreams, Stetson."
A nimble dodge got him out of the splash zone. He shifted gears. "You know, I don't understand you."
"You don't understand me?"
"Mhm. Kids, live-in mother, Little League, PTA, dishes at eight… Where does the Agency fit in all this?"
Amanda busied herself with scrubbing. There was a harried, cagey mien about her, and she took her time constructing a reply.
"Single moms have to work too."
"But they don't work for the federal underbelly."
Amanda had nothing to say to that. He hiked his hip over the countertop and watched her wipe a stubborn sauce stain. If he could read diplomats, delegates and double agents, then he could certainly read this middle-class mother.
"Of course, if you left the Agency, you wouldn't see much of me anymore," he guessed.
She clammed up again, rooting through cramped cupboards for space to put tumblers. Either he'd hit it right on the nose, or he was way off the mark. Maybe a bit of both.
"Is that how you get your kicks? It must be boring-"
As he spoke, Amanda's face started to lose its colour. The plate she was rinsing slipped from her fingers and sunk out of sight. She pitched forward, slapped a soapy hand to her mouth, and bolted for the bathroom. Lee was hot on her heels.
"Amanda? Amanda!"
A door slammed in his face, separating them like a stockade. He pulled up short and hovered his hand over the knob. Should he turn it? Knock? Back off? Before he could make up his mind, he heard a heaving sound. The cistern gave a gush and the features of his face screwed into a rictus.
Surely the squid wasn't rancid. He'd notice something like that. Grim ideas bubbled to the surface of his thoughts. Could she be sick-sick? The kind of sick that wasted a person away? No. If anything, she'd gained a couple pounds this past month.
Something else was amiss.
The door opened, a centimetre at first, then a little more. Amanda minced through the gap. Lee noted her downcast eyes and the cuticle between her teeth. Her improved colour did little to assuage him.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
A pause. She fixed her hair and fiddled with her headband. The door clicked unnoticed behind her.
"Nothing you'd understand," she said.
"Aw, come on, Amanda. I didn't mean it like that."
"Whatever. Let's just get ready. The sooner we solve this case, the sooner you can go home. I know how much you miss your nightclubs."
"...Right." He raked his nails through his hair. It was Johnson's ranch all over again. "Are you sure you're OK to go?"
"I can't very well let you leave without me. You're a dead man walking." Smiling tersely, she motioned to the stairs. "Let's get you something to wear. There's probably something of Dean's or Joe's lying around that we can use."
Lee's intestines knotted. For some reason, he didn't jibe with the thought of other men touching her. Wearing their leftover clothes was a step too far, a reminder that he was not, in fact, the only or even the most prominent partner in her past.
None of my business, he thought, tempering himself.
"Amanda, you'd tell me if I poisoned you, right?"
She shot him a quizzical look that morphed into something else. Something wary.
"I don't know. That would depend on your reaction."
Lee couldn't tell if she was teasing him or not. Either way, he probably deserved it. His hands balled and his masseter tightened like a band about to snap. That woman would be his undoing.
"I'm sorry. I promise I'm not ill," she quickly clarified. She put out a hand, as though to touch him, then rubbed her belly instead. "'Delicate stomach. But, um, we should chat when we have those burgers."
The reply evoked a mixed bag of elation and anxiety. So they were having those burgers after all, but only to "chat". Just what did a "chat" entail? And why did it have to wait? He couldn't blame her for shutting him out—not without being a hypocrite; reticence was his forte—but that didn't make it less frustrating.
He laughed a little, more to lighten the mood than anything. "What? Am I in trouble? Gonna ground me like one of your boys?"
But Amanda didn't laugh back.
AN/PSA: If you cannot handle the wait, the solution is to stop reading. I warned y'all in the beginning that this was shameless soap opera shenanigans. This is also my way of reliving every episode for myself. Me. Not you. I hate to bring this up, but it's getting out of hand to the point that I don't enjoy writing this as much anymore. It doesn't matter how often you ask if/when Amanda will tell Lee, because 1. I won't spoil that information, and 2. I originally planned out this AU in its entirety and the episode where Stuff happens has been set in stone from the beginning. To skip ahead to it or to make that part come earlier than what I intended would do the fic and myself a disservice. (3. Not that much time has passed in-universe.) It is also discouraging when almost every single comment focuses on just this and not the actual content of the chapter. Not all, but most. Please be considerate. Love ya!