Title: Consequences of our Actions
Disclosure:
Warner Brothers Television Distribution and Shoot The Moon Productions owns
these characters, as well as to the writers, and actors who created and
portrayed them. I am just a humble
author who wanted to breathe a little life back into them in an effort to be
entertaining.
Timing and
assumptions: Just after series
ended. Obviously, no one knows about
the marriage, Lee and Amanda are still sneaking around to get time together,
and all those who were peeping toms into their lives want to know how it all
ended up. Generous references to the
past and the events of the 4th season… and occasionally you might
see a character utter a familiar line…
Author: WhizGidget
Written: Dec 2000-Jan 2001
Rating: PG-ish…
probably more accurate as a G, but this allows for one's mind to wander…
Archive: here at
fanfiction.net, but if you wish to elsewhere, please email me…
Comments? I'd love to see 'em. Encouragement to continue? I'd love that too. Flames? Sure, why not, I need something to roast marshmallows by…
After going out
of their way to take Amanda back to Arlington, they headed for The Agency and
the debriefing. They met Billy at his
office, and he led the way to the separate interrogation rooms they would be
in. Usually Lee could convince Billy
that he wanted to watch Amanda's session, but there would be none of that this
day. They had to go in at the same
time.
The previous
night had been trying to both of them. The assignment had been simple at first. A background check, whereabouts, haunts and habits on some thief
named Williams who specialized in maps of diplomatic residences and any weak
spots they might have. A potential
powder keg, if those blueprints found their way into the wrong hands, but this
time it looked like he was just in DC for some recreational behavior.
At least that's
what it looked like to Lee and Amanda as they had tailed him on Friday night
and Saturday evening through some of the nicer restaurants and bars in the
area. It allowed the two agents some
much-needed time together as they watched his guy work his way place to place
trying to pick up women.
They had written
Friday night off to her family as a date, and Saturday was going to be a
working evening going over paperwork. That excuse was wearing thin – after all, how many Saturday nights could
be spent working on paperwork, when they could be out having a good time. Dotty West, Amanda's mother, wasn't buying
any of it anymore, and they all knew it. Lee and Amanda supposed it was easier for her to nod and accept it
rather than try to pin down what her daughter was really up to with each other.
And Amanda needed to come up with better excuses soon, or just admit that
something more serious was going on.
"Lee, this guy is
a schmuck. I mean, how many drinks can
he get turned down for before he gives up? I know it's our job, but—"
"Amanda…"
"I know, be
quiet." Amanda smiled and tipped her head down, knowing that Lee was starting
to feel guilty right about now. She had
known him for so long, and knew his habits. "Lee, what if I went out there and tried to get him picking up on
me? We both know that he might try, and
if I let slip that I'm looking for something fun, he might slip too."
"Amanda, we've
kept good cover tonight, but he's seen us together. Won't work."
"It will if we
fight and I throw a drink on you?"
"May I remind
you, Mrs. Stetson, about that last time you threw red wine on me. A bottle's worth, if I recall
correctly. You were frustrated for 3
days trying to get that stain out." Lee teased. "From some of the language that I heard coming from your laundry
room, I didn't think you wanted to travel that route again."
"Fine. I'll throw your beer on you. That's much easier to get out." Amanda's eyes twinkled.
"We're not going
to do this, Amanda. I do not want to follow you around tonight with a beer
soaked shirt. I want to spend every
moment tonight with you enjoying this boring routine stakeout." Lee smiled as
he shook his head looking down at the tabletop. "You know, stakeouts got so much more fun with you along. Remind me to thank Billy for putting the
two of us together."
"You sure you
want me to do that? This is from the
man who spent hours trying to figure out how to talk Billy out of letting me
'tag along' on your assignments, or how to lose me? For the amount of thanks that I have to give, you might get
jealous," Amanda smiled at her husband.
"Me? Lose
you? Jealous? Never happen, it's not my sty – wait a second. What's Fritz doing here?" Fritz the Cat had
been a good friend of Lee's for years, was an extremely imaginative crook, and
had helped him numerous times with routes in and out of places that regular
individuals weren't normally in. Not
the least of which was the Russian embassy a few months earlier when Lee had
been injected with a fatal virus and the only person with the antidote was
holed up inside and wasn't coming out.
Lee knew that
Fritz had great resources and incredible talent, but The Agency could always
get their hands on blueprints of buildings, and Lee had always provided those
when he needed Fritz's help. "What
could he be doing here? And he's
getting pretty friendly with Williams…"
Fritz and
Williams shook hands, greeting each other as if old friends, and started
walking out of the bar. Fritz took a
quick look around at something Williams said, and looked in the direction of
the agent team. He said something back
to Williams and they headed out of the bar rather quickly.
Lee threw a
couple of bills on the table, grabbed Amanda's hand, and they quickly headed
out as well. They managed to keep
their eyes on the pair and make it to Lee's Corvette in time to see them pull
out of the parking lot. After a couple
of almost missed turns, the two agents caught sight of the two thieves
again. Fritz and Williams went towards
the waterfront, and headed into a warehouse.
Lee went in,
warned Amanda to stay in the car (knowing full well that she probably
wouldn't), and headed in. Then things
went sour. Sims, one of Williams'
other cohorts, had observed Lee coming in and he ended up getting caught with a
gun placed to his head. Fritz had ended
up in the same position shortly after going in, but was already tied up to
boot. After about 10 impatient minutes
in the 'vette, with no sign of her partner, Amanda couldn't wait anymore. That's when she took her gun from under the
seat in the Corvette where she usually kept it, snuck in, shot Williams and
promptly passed out.
Lee secured the
situation, and went to the car to call for backup and medical assistance for
Fritz and Amanda. Then he headed back
to his partner to make sure she was ok.
"Amanda… Amanda,
listen to me. Are you ok? Hey, come back to me, here," Lee was almost
pleading when Amanda finally woke up. He wished greatly that he had been close enough to catch her in time to
keep her from hitting the floor. He
expected that she was going to have quite a headache when she came around. "Lee… I—you – oooohhhhhhh."
"It's ok,
Amanda. You're fine. The cleanup crew is on their way, and I'm
fine. You did great. You –"
"Oooooh" Amanda
was shaking her head. "No more. I don't want to talk about this. Oh Lee, I was so scared I was going to lose
you. You didn't come out, and I knew I
had my gun, and I know I should have waited in the car like you asked and,
oohhh, gosh, my head hurts," Amanda put her head down on her knees.
"It's ok,
Amanda. We're fine. Let's wait for the crew, Billy's coming, and
I'll take you home."
"Debriefing…"
"No, I'll get
Billy to postpone to tomorrow so that you can have a long bath and good night's
sleep."
"Lee, take me
home." She grabbed at Lee's shirt.
"I will, we
will…"
"To the
apartment. I want to stay there
tonight."
Amanda continued
to hang on to Lee in shock, or perhaps a touch of desperation in knowing that
he was still alive, until Agency backup arrived. Billy walked in to find Lee sitting up against a crate, and
Amanda tightly curled up against him, his left arm around her. Her hands were clutching his shirt, and her
head was buried in his shoulder. He
looked troubled, as if he didn't know what to say to make her feel better, but
didn't seem concerned that she was hanging on to him. Billy couldn't tell what was written on Amanda's face, but from
her body language, it was a good bet that she was not going to be steady on two
feet.
It hadn't taken
much for Lee to convince Billy that Amanda would do better in briefing if she
had had a chance to sleep off part of the shock she was in. Often, agents who had never used deadly
force ended up spending the night in a room in the clinic and then getting up
at the crack of dawn to run through the situation. Lee had done the same thing when he shot his first victim, and
it had happened again 12 years earlier when Dorothy was shot – but she was a
fellow agent, and someone who meant something to Lee. Although, even to this day, he was sometimes was still puzzled
as to what exactly she meant to him.
Lee's thoughts
settled on Oz for a short moment while he was getting settled in the interrogation
rooms. How many times had he gone over
the situation over and over, the smell of roses in his memory? Lee sighed. How many times had he sat on the other side of the table asking the
questions of other agents, of enemies, of spies? Maybe it *was* time to settle down. Maybe it was time to take that desk job that Billy kept sending
his way with the GG-18 pay raise. It
would certainly help to convince Amanda to get out of the field if she wanted
to, and it would allow him to settle down in Arlington with her and the
boys.
A half hour
later, he was done. He didn't have to
go over much considering he and Amanda had kept decent logs of the tail, and
that this was pretty cut and dry from Lee's perspective of what happened. Amanda was so much better at the reporting
end of things than he was, but her influence had helped him from getting behind
and spending hours in the Q-Bureau covering his fingers and reports in
White-out. When it was all over, he
headed back through observation and found Billy.
"How's she
doing?"
Billy shook his
head. "Lee, it's taken the last hour
just to get her to start talking. She
seemed her usual chipper self when you brought her in this morning, but as soon
as she sat down in here, she just got very quiet. It's like she doesn't want to relive it."
Lee sighed. 'Come on, Amanda,' he thought, 'you can do
this. You have to. Talk it out, get it over with, and we can
spend the next week trying to get you to forget about this.' Amanda straightened up in her chair at the
moment, as if she had heard him, or knew he was there. She took a deep breath, a small sip of
water, and then asked if she could just start at the beginning and talk in her
own words. This was not an uncommon
request of her, or of any agent. Sometimes
it was better to get it all out in your own words on tape, without
interruption, and then you were done with it. She started talking steadily for the next 25 minutes going over
everything and ending with the shooting. Lee tried to watch impassively from a dark corner of the room, but Billy
could almost tell what he was feeling. Scarecrow may have a great poker face, but Lee's body language told a
different story.
"Lee, why don't
you head up to the Q-Bureau and start getting it straight? Amanda's almost done here, and then she's
going straight to Pfaff's office."
Lee looked
through the window for a moment, and then started out, when he heard the
interrogator ask a question and turned to look. "Mrs. King, you did
wonderfully, but I must ask – you didn't recount any feelings here, just facts,
and that's not your usual style. Feelings are Pfaff's business, I suppose, but how did you feel with a
gun to your partner's head? You are a
relatively green agent, and do not normally carry firearms…"
Amanda stiffened
up a bit at the question, and asked, "What does it matter? That is a question for Pfaff to ask, isn't
it?" Billy and Lee looked at each
other. Amanda was always one for
talking about feelings, and this was definitely not in her character. The position of Lee with a gun to his head
must have been too much for her to handle easily. Billy knew that this was not the first time that she had seen Lee
with a gun to his head, but it was certainly the first time that she had a
firearm at the same time to prevent something from happening.
"Billy, get her
in with Pfaff, now. I thought about
arguing the point with you again, but I think this time, you're right. I'll be
upstairs." Lee headed up for the
Q-Bureau and started clearing up the files that were still open. The background checks could be handed off to
an agent in the bullpen to complete. Francine could take the other active files – there weren't many, and
they were already summarized. Lee
finished up some notes for the Williams report, set it in the pile for
Francine, turned off the lights, and then headed for the couch.
A good night's
sleep hadn't done anything to prepare Amanda for the experience of debriefing,
followed by a session with Pfaff. Especially when the man took the couch for himself, and sucked on that
lollipop. It was better when he was on
the ice cream – he didn't ask questions about how many licks on average it
would take to finish the ice cream, as he had today, which had made Amanda
clearly uncomfortable.
The fear and
anger she had felt at seeing her partner with a gun to his head was
normal. As was the fact that she still
felt angry about it, and that fear was manifesting itself in her shaking hands
as she recounted the incident in debriefing and with Dr. Pfaff. At one point, Amanda was completely in
tears. "He promised. I always said that I didn't want to shoot
anyone, and he said I never had to. He
said that that was a promise. And one
that he intended to keep."
"Mrs. King, you
know in our line of work, that that is not a realistic promise. Sometimes use of force is necessary. You managed to avoid using a gun for 4
years. I'd say that that was an Agency
record, but you've been civilian for 3 of those, and we don't like civilians to
be armed." Dr. Pfaff paused for a
moment to stuff his lollipop back in his mouth. When she looked up at him, he tried to smile around this stick,
but failed miserably.
He had encouraged
her to continue thinking over the incident – was there anything that she could
have done differently – what if she had
stayed in the car – to see that she was not in the wrong, as The Agency review
board had already determined. She did
what she needed to do in the line of duty. Now it was up to Amanda to reconcile herself to believing that.
Pfaff had cleared
her to leave The Agency with whatever time off Billy had thought appropriate in
the situation. She had a standing
invitation back to Pfaff's office any time while she was off, and they planned
to schedule some time on her first day back to be sure that she would be ready
to go back into the field.
Once she
finished, she headed for Billy's office, and told him of what Pfaff had
said. And admitted that yes, she had
been scared. "Lee's my partner, and my
best friend, Mr. Melrose. I couldn't
have continued with The Agency if something had happened to him. To be honest, I don't know if I could have
continued living in the area." At this
last statement, she had lowered her voice to almost a whisper. Amanda thought about all the times that he
had knocked on her back door at night in order to update her on something that
was going on. Sometimes those little
visits weren't even necessary – he could have told her some of these things in
the morning, but it was the beginning of their relationship whether they knew
it or not. Sometimes he still came to
the back door instead of ringing the front doorbell, mostly out of old
habit.
Billy had told
her that the both of them were going off active duty for the next 10 days and
that the Q-Bureau was closed for the duration of their leave. Francine would take the active files, and he
had sent Lee upstairs earlier to clear things up. Amanda nodded, not realizing how much insight into their
relationship she had provided to Billy in her statements about Lee. She was more concerned with the thought
that he would probably be ready to throw the typewriter out the window by now,
and so she hurried upstairs.
The one thing she
really wanted to do was to take a nap on the couch in the office – it was only
two hours after they had come in for debriefing, but Amanda felt like she had
already been through a full day and then some and was dead on her feet. She thought it odd when she opened the door
and found all but Lee's desk light off. Immediately she noticed the distinct piles of files on Lee's desk. She turned towards the couch, and saw that
it was already occupied. Shaking her
head, she smiled – Lee was better about not needing to sleep in a lighted room,
especially when Amanda was staying over, but when he was particularly stressed
out, you could guarantee he'd have a light on. She sank down next to the still form of her partner, and gently shook
his shoulder. "Lee…?"
"Hmmmm…" Lee woke slowly. "Hey… how'd it go with Pfaff?" He sat up on the couch and made room for her to sit down.
"Fine. Though I'm still bugged by his insistence on
staying on the couch and leaving his patients to wander the room aimlessly – sometimes
I feel like the doctor when I'm in there. I feel better now, but I'm beat. How'd it go up here? Mr. Melrose
said that he'd relegated you to finishing reports…" Amanda trailed off with a
smile. Reports were not Lee's favorite
things to do, and after almost 20 years in the business, he still wasn't very
good with them. He couldn't type worth
beans and they had a small box of Whiteout in the office as testament to
that.
"The reports are
done, typos and all. Most everything's
going to Francine's desk, and the background checks will go down to the
bullpen. They won't miss us while we're
out. Did Billy tell you that he's
giving us 10 days?" Lee wiggled his
eyebrows at Amanda. "What kind of
trouble do you think we can get into in 10 days time?"
"Oh, Lee. I just want to stay home and be normal. I need to spend some time at home with
Mother and the boys, and I know you'd like that too. They're your family too." Amanda reflected on her mother's insistence that Lee should make a
formal commitment to one another soon, and she had already stated to Lee that
he was family as far as she was concerned. If Mother only knew…
"'Manda, I
watched part of your debriefing. What
was that at the end when they asked about how you felt…" Lee's voice trailed
off. He knew he shouldn't be
asking. He pressed on. "It was almost robotic…"
"Lee, I'm fine,
honey. That wasn't the time or place to
go over it. I was scared, and angry,
and didn't think too clearly. The shot
was reactionary, and appropriate to the situation, and I'm fine. Even Pfaff says I'm fine. What's more
important to me is that you're fine," she paused. "What's going on with Fritz? I saw him when I came out of briefing – he looked like he'd been there
all night."
"He was, after
they worked on that graze would on his shoulder. He was trying to get more info on this guy and had planned to let
me know about what was going on. It was
pure coincidence that our paths crossed on this case. He's going to be fine. I'm vouching for him, and he'll be free to go by the end of the
day. Speaking of the end of the day,
why don't we go home and grab an early lunch?" Lee got up off the couch, grabbed his keys and the files, and
they headed together down to the bullpen to drop off the files.
Lee dropped the
active files on Francine's desk and headed for Billy's office to drop off the
background checks. When he entered to
drop off the files, Billy didn't even look up. He was staring at a stack of files that was centered in the
middle of the desk. "Billy, something
wrong?" Amanda was standing back by the
door. Billy motioned her to come in
and shut the door.
"Ok guys, I
wasn't going to tell you this, but Internal Affairs has changed the background
structure on us again. You guys are up
for full checks this week." Billy put a
hand up before anyone had a chance to interrupt, "It won't affect your time off
at all, but I have to ask this before you're off. Is there anything that they're going to find in those files
that's going to be an unpleasant little surprise for me?" With this statement he looked pointedly at
Lee, remembering the little snafu a few years back with a pair of Russian
acrobats, some illegally imported vodka, and the Russian embassy's limousine
that had put Lee on the non-duty roster for 3 weeks, and Billy up to his ears
in meetings, explanations, and paperwork.
"I haven't done
anything to bring embarrassment down on The Agency this year, Billy. There's nothing there that I'm not proud
of. There are no acrobats, contortionists,
or unaccounted-for weekends," Lee stated somewhat truthfully. "By the way, why don't you ever ask Amanda
that type of question?"
"Because Amanda
hasn't done anything to bring complete embarrassment on The Agency or herself,
nor have I had to make excuses for her behavior, unlike yourself, or complete
tons of paperwork in triplicate because of something extra-curricular that she
has done. But if it makes you happy…"
Billy looked over at Amanda questioningly.
"No, sir. I haven't been to the circus since I was a
little girl... oh well, I did take the boys a few years ago when the
international circus came to town and there were these wonderful acro-" Amanda
stopped, looked at Billy who was smiling, and turned with a raised eyebrow to
Lee, "Contortionists, Lee?"
Lee blushed
slightly, and look down. Then looked
back up, flashing that megawatt smile. "It was nothing, I was young, and they were… um… that was 7 years ago
Amanda!" Amanda stood there with her
arms crossed, eyebrow raised. That
smile wasn't going to get him out of this one. And he would have some interesting explaining to do. "I'll explain it to you later."
"You bet you
will, or I might have to do my own background check on you, Stetson." Amanda smiled at Billy. "Thank you again for the time off, Sir. And for suggesting that I talk with Dr.
Pfaff. He's really very helpful."
"…When he isn't
succumbing to that oral fixation of his…" Lee mumbled to himself.
"What was that,
Scarecrow?"
"Nothing,
Billy. Hey, did you find out why Smyth
had a tail on me and Amanda last night?"
"Nope. He's not talking to anyone this morning,
least of all me. But I do know that
they're not following you anymore."
Well, then,
here's the files for the background checks, just assign them to any freshman
agent – they're routine. Francine
already has the active files. And we're
off." Lee smiled and headed for the
door.
"Enjoy. Oh, and Lee? Don't you two do anything I wouldn't do…" Billy smiled at his
best team, while Lee looked over at him shaking his head. He was still laughing as he watched them
walk out of the bullpen, Lee's hand at the small of Amanda's back as he had
observed it so many times before. He
was wondering when those two were going to go public with their
relationship. There were so many
little signs that they were attracted to one another; there had been so many
little signs since they first started working together. And it wasn't as if others hadn't observed
them.
Lee was still
being gossiped about around the coffee pots, but it was standard practice now
that Amanda's name came up in the same breath when his did. There were people who stated that you had
to be blind or heartless to not notice the electricity between those two –
something had to be going on. There
also was a rumor that there was yet another woman in Stetson's life and it was
that woman who was going to take him off the market. As to who this mystery lady was, no one knew. But if Amanda were to find out, even about
the rumor, half of The Agency's best team would be in the hospital for at least
a week – and everyone knew how much Stetson hated hospitals.
Billy had known
early on that making Scarecrow work with a civilian, and a divorced mother of
two children at that, would have his lone agent take less chances, so as to
prevent any harm from coming to her. And pushing her towards him alone had shown that there were significant
changes in Lee's behavior. He didn't
want to work with a partner ever again, but Amanda was always on his
assignments. He was taking fewer
chances, following the rules a little more closely, and wasn't looking like
something the cat dragged in every morning.
Even his playboy
ways had cooled down, even if the gossip around the coffee pots hadn't. The steno pool had gotten 3 new female
employees – a blond, brunette, and a redhead, all young and single, all primed
with stories about the famous Scarecrow, and all interested in meeting the
dashing agent – and no one had seen him within 50 feet of the place in
months. Amanda was handling all of
his reports, and anything that needed to be brought down to the steno pool as
overflow Amanda brought it herself. Billy often asked about that, and the response from Lee was that he
trusted her more than the steno pool to put the reports together quickly,
accurately (she was there for most of the incidents), and without typos. Billy prided himself on being able to take
credit for all of these changes in Lee Stetson's behavior because of his
pushing those two together. And he knew
that because of that 'encouragement' that he could also take credit for being
responsible for Lee and Amanda getting personally involved with one another. There was one thing, however, that Billy
couldn't take credit for.
Billy wasn't the
one who picked this civilian out in the crowd as the person to deliver the
music box to the man in the red hat on the train that morning. That was Scarecrow alone. He could have picked any one of a hundred
people who were already boarding the train, but he found a housewife in her
nightgown and an overcoat, and begged her to do it. And that she had saved his life that very same week. And despite the attempts to convince Billy
that she wasn't a qualified agent, that she made lucky guesses, that she slowed
him down, even Scarecrow had to admit that she'd turned into a pretty good
agent, and a great partner besides.
Again, Billy
wondered when his best team was going to let everyone else know that they were
a little more than partners. And
whether those troubling rumors about someone else in Stetson's life were true.
To Be Continued…