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: at
fanfiction.net, and if you wish to archive 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…
"So Stetson, what
now?" Amanda looked over at her
husband. She was out of a job, and he
was on indefinite suspension. Billy had
promised to start looking over everything he could to convince Smyth that
dissolving this team would be a mistake. Billy knew, however, that Smyth was stubborn, and that it would take
time. He promised that it would be at
least a week before he could do anything to make a slight dent in this
mess. And that eventually it would be
resolved. After all, why would Smyth
want to break up the most successful team The Agency had ever seen? Despite their personal involvement, which
had a significant history, they were still getting the job done properly. Smyth was just on another of his personal
vendettas – as to why he seemed to have it in for Scarecrow was beyond anyone's
logical reasoning. Popular theory among
some agents was that maybe he was traumatized by the story of "The Wizard of
Oz" as a child. Then again, no one
could imagine Smyth as a child; other agents thought he hatched from somewhere
at his present age, and with his unpleasant demeanor already in place.
Lee was thinking
in a fairly positive manner – Amanda had had that effect on him since shortly
after they met. He was fairly sure that
they would have their jobs back quickly, but that there would be
repercussions. He was sure that the
rumor mill was already turning over this news – not just his suspension and the
termination of Amanda's job, but the reasons why both had happened. And it would spread quickly – Francine knew
about their marriage, and she was the queen of the rumormongers. She had assured them that she would keep a
lid on it, and with her keeping her mouth shut, the rumor mill would go into
overdrive at the both of them being gone. But no one could keep a lid on Dr. Smyth – he was a worse gossip than
Francine. He was sure to open his mouth
to crow about finally grounding Scarecrow and Mrs. King.
And how he
managed to do it, or rather, how they managed to ground themselves. Amanda could image him snickering about it
now.
"What do we do
now? We spend the rest of the day
packing up my apartment, tell your mother and the boys about everything and
spend tonight at the house in Arlington. Together." Lee looked back at
Amanda, and from the look on his face, he wasn't kidding. He had pulled up in front of his apartment
building, and got out of the Corvette.
Amanda followed
him up to the apartment before she spoke again. "Telling them what? That
we lost our jobs, or—" Amanda paused. "Lee, are you sure you want to do this? Lee?" He had headed straight for
the bedroom, and she wasn't sure she should follow him. She looked around briefly – what *was* going
on here at night after they split up. Smyth had mentioned having agents listen into the apartment every other
night? Was someone else coming to Lee's
apartment at night? She was going to
have to address this soon, but this was neither the time nor the place – they
had to figure out what to do about the boys, and thankfully, they had a little
time to do so. It wasn't quite
lunchtime, and the boys had baseball practice today which would keep them at
school until at least 4:30. Summer
break was scheduled to start in couple of weeks, though, and then they would be
underfoot all day.
Amanda made up
her mind to head into the bedroom but stay at the doorway. She found Lee at his closet throwing things
into a bag. "Why are you packing a bag? Where are you going?" What happened to the stuff that he was
supposed to have been packing up last night while he was here? Amanda's mind was racing with other
thoughts; this disturbing one got pushed to the bottom of the queue.
"With you, to
your place."
"You're
serious!? You want to tell them today
and just move right in? We can't do
that? They're not ready to hear this
from us. We only just told them that
we're dating a few months ago, and to tell them that we actually got married
and have been sneaking around to be together. I don't know, Lee, how are my boys going to take it? And Mother, oh, she's going to be so
disappointed that I didn't tell her anything-"
"Amanda, take a
deep breath and calm down." Lee came
out of the bathroom. Even after 4
years, he still couldn't fathom how she or her mother could talk for so long
without taking a breath. "They're going
to be fine. Philip and Jaime aren't the
little boys that they were when we first met. It's not like we're going to tell them about what we really do for a
living."
"Really? Then how are we going to explain that we got married 5 months ago and didn't
want to tell anyone? For their
safety? Ok, what's so dangerous about
being documentary producers? How do we explain
that one, Lee? And how do we explain
the lovely bruise next to my eye from hitting the ground last night?" Amanda didn't seem the least bit pleased
about this and she was going to break her necklace chain from how much she was
moving that heart back and forth on it.
"Amanda, that
bruise doesn't look bad at all. You,
um… you bumped into a door!"
"We've used that
one. Mother's going to start thinking
that either I have an inner ear problem or that you're beating me up if we keep
having me 'bump into' something."
"You were
mugged?"
"Every six
months?"
"Amanda, unless
Billy can do something about both our jobs and our professional partnership, I
don't see the harm. Even if we're both
re-instated I want your family to know. I suppose we could tell them that we could have put our jobs at risk, or
funding for some of our documentaries, or –" Lee came over to Amanda, and
grabbed her hand, stilling it from the nervous movements along the chain.
"Or we could just
tell them that we work for the government, and that we have clearances for
sensitive information, and we had to hide this to protect them. That there are people who want some of the
information we handle, and that we thought hiding this would be a good
idea. We do work for the government,
and we do handle sensitive information." Lee knew that Amanda hated lying to her mother and her sons. But she also disliked being disloyal – this
explanation would handle both of those subjects without compromising her
ethics.
"And the
bruises?" Amanda smiled, almost knowing
the answer.
"That would
explain why you've been 'mugged' every six months." They both laughed for a moment, and Lee zipped up his bag.
"Amanda, it's
still not the full truth, and as much as I would like to be able to tell you
that you could tell them everything, you can't. I know that bothers you. But I would like to tell them that we are married, that we have been for
a while. If it would make your mother
happy, we can hold another ceremony. If it would make Philip and Jaime happy, I won't move in tonight, but it
certainly will be easier to get you over here more often for the night." Lee pulled Amanda into his arms for a
reassuring hug – he wasn't quite sure, though, if the hug was more for her or
for him. "As for anything else we must
face, we'll figure it out as we go along. That's how we've handled everything so far, right? And the consequences haven't been that bad…"
He leaned in to kiss her. "Now, I'm as
packed up as I want to be. Whatever
shall we do for the rest of the afternoon, Mrs. Stetson," he teased as he
wiggled his eyebrows at Amanda.
"Why, I just
don't know what you mean. We're going
shopping. If you're making dinner for
the family tonight, we need supplies."
"I'm making
dinner?" Lee thought quickly as to when
he might have made that promise. "When
did I say I was making dinner?"
"You just
did."
When Philip and
Jaime got home after practice, they found their mother and Lee in the kitchen,
working on dinner. Both boys had a
natural affection now for Lee. Jaime
had taken a little while to come around, while Philip had taken to Lee almost
immediately. The fact that he drove a
Corvette had helped. Their grandmother
came downstairs when she heard them come in and immediately sent them upstairs
to change clothes and get cleaned up for dinner. Both Lee and Amanda, and the boys could stand a little more time
in the status quo before the bomb dropped, Dotty thought. With that she chuckled to herself. *She* could have used a little more time in
the status quo, but it was not to be.
When Dotty had
gotten home from her flying lesson, she was still slightly concerned about
Amanda and how subdued she had been the previous night, but the sight of Lee's
silver Corvette parked in front of the house calmed her. Amanda was always 250% happier when Lee was
around, and Dotty was sure that today would be no exception. And she was proven right when she had found
Amanda and Lee tangled up together in the kitchen. What drew Dotty's attention was not the fact that this dashing
man was kissing her daughter senseless, and not the dazzling smile that Amanda
had on her face, but instead, the shiny wedding rings she caught sight of. When they realized they were being watched,
they broke apart quickly, and headed to opposite sections of the kitchen – Lee
to the stove where the wok was sitting, and Amanda over to grab a bag of
rice. Dotty laughed at them, and when
they turned to look at her, she asked that they had better tell her what's
going on.
"Lee came over
and he's making dinner tonight, Mother. That's all."
"No, Amanda,
that's not what I'm referring to. What's
going on with the wedding rings? I'm
your Mother, sweetheart, I'm not blind or stupid, and don't you bother hiding
that hand in your pocket, Lee Stetson, I know what I saw on my daughter's hand,
and on yours." Dotty smiled as Lee
stopped, looking guilty, mid-stream from putting his hand in his pocket.
The three of them
had sat down in the family room and both Lee and Amanda came clean about the
wedding, apologizing the entire time for not telling Dotty, but emphasizing
that the secrecy had to do with their jobs. She now knew that they had been working together for 4 years, starting
dating 18 months ago, and married 5 months earlier. She didn't know the exact particulars of their jobs, but that
they did have access to sensitive military and political information, and there
were people who would want that information. Dotty was relieved – "well, at least you're not spies," she
laughed. Lee and Amanda simply looked
at Dotty, smiled and nodded, as if in agreement. Dotty knew that there was something else going on with this
picture, but she wasn't really sure that she wanted to have any more
information than she did.
It wasn't an
impulse that they had gotten married – this was the real thing. She wasn't overjoyed that her daughter had
eloped, and although they weren't admitting it, Dotty knew that it must have
been Lee's idea. But she realized with
the way they were explaining their jobs and why they hid such news from
everyone was to protect herself and her grandsons. And from the look on Lee's face when he looked at Amanda, Dotty
had no doubts that their explanation about their marriage was not something to
be taken lightly.
This, however,
explained a lot about her daughter's strange behavior in the last 4 years: all
the late night phone calls, and Amanda rushing off here and there, and it shed
light on her behavior in the last few months – they had had to sneak around to
get a night together whenever they could and that certainly wasn't healthy for
a newly married couple, as far as Dotty was concerned. It also did nothing to assuage her newfound
fear that their jobs might hurt the family, but Amanda looked so relieved – she
had finally been able to be truthful about her personal life to her mother.
Lee had even come
clean about being the one who was sneaking around in the garden, not the
neighbor's dog that was the favorite excuse, and that he was the reason that no
flowers ever grew under the kitchen window. He also offered to put down new soil and build a small fence around that
window so that something could get the chance to grow, although, he admitted,
he would miss popping up at the window and startling Amanda while she was in
the kitchen.
Dotty was pretty
steamed about the state of the garden, but not half as much as she was about
missing her daughter's wedding. Lee
forged ahead and promised Dotty that they would renew their vows on their 1st
wedding anniversary for the world to see and share in, and that she could throw
as big a reception as she wanted to plan. He knew that he'd pay for it when Amanda next got him alone, and that
Dotty would go into overdrive over the renewal and reception, but if it
smoothed a few feathers with his mother-in-law, then it was a small price to
pay.
They did admit to
one other skeleton in the closet – that IFF had found out about their
relationship, and ultimately they had to admit their marriage – and that one of
them had lost their jobs, while the other was suspended. Dotty figured it out before either could
continue, that Lee got to keep his job because of his seniority, but that was
shaky too, considering his indefinite suspension.
After getting
assurances from them that there were no other skeletons in the closet, no
unexpected pregnancies on the way, no dead bodies in the garage, Dotty left the
two of them alone again in the kitchen to finish making dinner, and to make a
couple of phone calls. As she passed
Amanda's room, she took note of a bag that she had never seen before, and
assumed it was Lee's. Yes, she would have
to make those phone calls fast – they deserved some time alone together this
night that they didn't have to sneak around to get. Their jobs could have hurt their relationship more than it could
have harmed their family, because it was their jobs that prevented them from
having any decent time alone together.
Dinner was a
quiet affair, and somehow the boys knew something was going on. Everyone enjoyed the stir-fry that Lee had made,
and Dotty was suitably impressed with his cooking skills, especially to find
that some of his skills were honed around the world in his travels for work and
in being shuttled around the world with his uncle, the Colonel. Despite the conversation with Dotty, Lee
and Amanda kept looking at each other nervously. Dotty was also valiantly trying to keep some type of conversation
going with the boys, but that was easier said than done.
Normally Philip
and Jaime wouldn't stop talking or fighting, no matter who was at the
table. Lee had had dinner with them in
the past, and at least Philip would fire questions non-stop at him about the
car. Tonight, they had not heard more than
a dozen words from Philip, and most of those were related to passing the rice,
the water, and the napkins. Jaime was
actually holding some short conversations with Lee about baseball practice,
school, and his latest science project. Lee tried to talk to Philip, but didn't get any response other than a
blank stare.
Amanda clearly
was worried, and when she passed Lee in the kitchen while they were clearing
the table, she expressed that this might not be a good time to tell them.
"Amanda, when will it be a good time to tell them? When we're celebrating our 10th anniversary? When the boys get married? Your mother isn't going to be able to keep
this a secret forever, you know, and she won't want to either." Amanda nodded. Lee was frustrated, you could hear it in his voice, and he was
right – there was no time like the present, and she was just being a chicken.
"Philip,
Jaime! We need to talk. Family meeting." When she saw Philip and Jaime heading for the kitchen, she added: "In the family room." Just then, the doorbell rang, and Dotty
ran to get the door. She led Joe into
the family room, congratulating him on his simply wonderful timing.
"Joe! What are you doing here?" Amanda turned completely pale.
"I'm not
sure. Dotty called me and said I needed
to get over here tonight, because there was something important going on. Is everything all right?" He looked from Amanda to Philip and Jaime,
knowing that no one was hurt, but not sure what to expect. That's when he noticed Lee standing a
couple of feet away from Amanda; he had to have something to do with whatever
it was that Amanda had to say, and he looked as nervous as she did.
Dotty had seated
herself on the sofa, with the boys on either side. Joe found a seat on a nearby chair. Lee and Amanda stood up together, and looked at each other as if
they were standing in front of a firing squad.
They had been
standing there for about 30 seconds when Lee cleared his throat and immediately
stared at his shoes. 'Why is this
making me nervous? I wasn't this
nervous when I asked her to marry me, or when we actually got married. What's so difficult about telling her
sons? Our sons,' he corrected
himself. He looked up and saw Dotty
smiling, Jaime studying them carefully, and Philip looking like he was ready to
beat someone up. Lee looked over at Amanda,
and then back down at the floor.
Dotty looked as
nervous as they did, and she grabbed each of her grandson's hands. Philip looked suspiciously at his
grandmother, and then over to his mother. She looked happy, nervous, was fidgeting and had a hand on her stomach
to settle the butterflies that were romping around in there. Jaime was still studying Lee and
Amanda. Then he noticed a glint of gold
on Lee's left hand when he ran his hand nervously through his hair. "Uh, Mom? Do you two have something to tell us?" he commented in a teasing tone.
Philip looked up,
noticing the hand his mother had to her stomach, "Aw, Mom, don't tell us you're
pregnant." With that said, he looked
pointedly, and not kindly, towards Lee.
"No, fellas, I'm
not pregnant. But Lee and I do have
something pretty important to talk to you about."
Jamie spoke up
again in a more serious tone of voice. "Are you two going to tell us something then, that we should have
already noticed?" Amanda looked
questioningly at her son, who was smiling, as he pointed at Lee's left
hand.
Philip then
noticed the wedding band as well, and the anger that Lee had observed in his
face came through loud and clear in his words. "We trusted you! How
could you do this!" Dotty, Joe and
Amanda all reprimanded him to sit down at the same time. Lee looked uncomfortable and stuffed his
hands into his pockets. Everyone in
the room thought Philip's outburst was a reaction to the news.
"Boys, your mom
and I didn't mean to tell you this way, but, well, um…" Lee trailed off and
looked helplessly at Amanda. Jaime was
smiling. He couldn't be happier that
Lee was going to be his stepfather; despite the bad feelings he had had a few
months earlier when they had first started dating, he really liked Lee. He wondered briefly what had gotten Philip
so hot under the collar. Philip was
the one who kept trying to convince Jaime that Lee was a great guy; now it
seemed like he wished that Lee would disappear into the floor.
"Fellas, Lee and
I have known each other for some time now, and we've been seeing each other for
longer than we've admitted to you. There was a reason for it, but that's not an excuse. We should never have hidden this from
you. Due to the nature of our jobs we
have access to information that people from other countries would love to have,
and there are rules at the office about this sort of thing, so we couldn't tell
anyone about us. No one knew that we
were seeing each other, except for all of you here, and that was difficult
because you didn't know how long we really had been seeing each other. When we decided that it was time to take the
next step, we knew we couldn't tell anyone. And well, one thing led to another, and we-" Amanda was cut off by her
oldest son's angry voice.
"So you shacked
up together, and didn't bother to tell his wife, right?" Philip was bright red and if looks could
kill, Lee would have been dead 5 minutes earlier. Amanda wondered if her oldest son had been hit on the head with a
baseball earlier that day, or just was so angry that he wasn't listening to
what they said. Then it registered what
he had said. Joe and Lee beat her to
the punch and spoke simultaneously.
"Wife?" Lee quizzed.
"Stetson, what
does he mean by 'wife'?" Joe didn't
look too happy at the news.
"What are you
talking about, Philip? What wife?" Amanda was confused.
Philip cut his
mother off once again. "You scum. How could you treat my mom this way? Don't you have any respect for her?" He got up off the couch and started pacing
the room. Much in the same way that his
stepfather had paced Billy's office not a few hours earlier.
"Philip, that's
enough." Lee finally found a detached
professional voice and it had stopped Philip in his tracks. "I respect your
mother greatly. She is a wonderful
woman, an incredible mom, and the best co-worker that anyone could ask
for. That's part of why I married her." Lee smiled at Philip who now was standing in
the middle of the living room with mouth hanging open in shock. Which everyone, again, thought was because
of the news. "Besides the fact that I
couldn't think of living the rest of my life without her."
"Then why do you
have someone else answering your phone at your place? Someone female who isn't Mom. If Mom is so wonderful, then how come she doesn't know about this other
woman?" Philip stalked right up to Lee,
staring him in the eye.
Jaime was
grinning from ear to ear. He could now
see the wedding set on his mother's hand, and was thrilled. He figured that Philip was misunderstanding
something or another. Maybe it had been
Mom who answered the phone – after all, they were married, and it would be
natural to answer the phone at Lee's place, right? Amanda registered her youngest son's reaction and set the thought
aside, as she had expected that she would have to sell the idea to her youngest
son, not the oldest, but here Jaime was, happier than she had ever seen him in
a long time. She was going to have to
get some answers and get them now.
Everyone was
talking at each other at the same time. Jaime was trying to convince Philip that he's got to be wrong. Philip was also calling Jaime all sorts of
names, the most common of which was 'worm brain'. Philip was also accusing Lee of already being married, Joe was
yelling at Philip to leave Jaime alone, while trying to fight with Lee over
what other woman would be in his life. Dotty was trying to convince Jaime to go into the kitchen and leave the
situation, and valiantly trying to keep Lee's hands down at his sides, as he
looked like he needed to punch something, and the first thing he could get
would be Joe.
Amanda couldn't
take it anymore. "Would everyone please
stop yelling RIGHT NOW!" That got
everyone's attention and they all turned towards her as she moved behind the
couch towards the kitchen. "I don't
understand what's going on here. Lee
and I were announcing our marriage, and World War III attempted to break out in
my living room. Philip, what did you
mean about another woman answering Lee's phone?"
"Amanda, we
should talk about this-" Amanda cut Lee off.
"We will talk
about this now, Lee. What other woman
was in your apartment? And Philip, when
did you call over there to hear someone else answer the phone? Perhaps you dialed the wrong number." Amanda started clutching at straws, but she
knew that there was something else going on.
"I didn't dial
the wrong number, Mom. I have Lee's
number memorized."
"Amanda, I can
explain." Lee didn't look guilty to Amanda,
but instead very calm, very rational, and very much like he was about to
interrogate a KGB operative.
"You'd better,
Stetson. Or else you're going to have
to deal with me." Joe was livid.
"Joe, shut up, sit
down, and let me hear what Philip and Lee have to say." Joe stared at his ex-wife as if she'd
starting sprouting snakes out her eyeballs.
"Mom, the other
night, you were so down, Grandma asked me to call Lee and invite him over for
dinner so that you'd cheer up. You're
always so happy when he's around, and he'd given me his number before, so I
called. But some lady picked up in his
apartment and answered it 'Stetson residence', and I figured that it was
probably a girlfriend or… a wife,… and-" Philip's voice faltered when he looked
in Lee's direction, "I'm, uh, really wrong about this, um, aren't I?" When his eyes had settled on Lee, he took in
the scowl on his new step-father's face.
"So, you're the
mystery caller who hung up the other night? She isn't a girlfriend, and she isn't my wife. My wife, your mother, is standing over there behind the couch
looking like she's ready to kill me." Lee looked down at his shoes. They were looking more and more interesting as the night wore on.
"Who is she,
Lee? I'm not deaf. I've heard rumors around work, but I thought
that it was the steno pool being jealous." Everyone turned to stare at Amanda. "Old girlfriend?"
"Yes, she is an
old girlfriend. No, we are not
involved. And there is a valid reason
she is coming to the apartment. And
that's all I'm going to say to any of you until I have a chance to talk to
Amanda alone." With that Lee crossed
his arms over his chest, and didn't say another word.
"Well, um, I
think that's my cue. Boys, get upstairs
and pack. You're going to stay with
your father for a couple of days. Amanda, I hope you don't mind that I made these arrangements without
consulting you, but it looks like you're going to need the time." She held a hand up as Amanda opened her
mouth to speak, "Don't thank me now, I need to go up and pack. Captain Kurt's picking me up and I'm going
to stay at his condo. But you have some
more explaining to do." With that, she
walked out of the family room, heading upstairs, as Joe walked angrily out the
front door.
To Be Continued…