TPWP ch4 Title: The Price We Pay

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. Generous references to the past and the events of the 4th season… I don't make any money off of this – my only reward is
my personal satisfaction at having written a decent story (and the story is all mine). Oh, and any new characters that you meet along the way - those
are creations from my own twisted imagination, so hands off, unless you ask for permission to play with them.

See Chapter 1 for more information on timing and all that other good stuff...

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"Scarecrow, mind your manners." Lee instantly went on the alert when he heard Billy Melrose's voice on the phone with the recognition code that there may be extra ears. He'd already had enough of people listening on him, after the stunt that Smyth had pulled a couple of weeks earlier.

"I'm being good, I can't say the same for the kids. Wanna go out for a drink, Billy?"

"Sure. How 'bout that old bar that we used to go to… I can't remember the name of it, though." Billy was certainly trying to be evasive.

"Are you thinking of where Amanda and I had that huge fight?" Come on, Billy… is it Nedlinger's or Randy's….

"You fought at that place? And didn't get thrown out? I don't believe it. Besides, you two never fight. See you there in a half hour?" He definitely meant Randy's, and fast. Billy must be thinking to leave quickly before someone picked up a tail on him. Smyth was serious about keeping Lee and Amanda locked out.

"I'll be there." Lee hung up the phone, and looked around him. No one was in sight, but Amanda often had the practice of moving through the house very silently. He guessed she was probably in the laundry room from the last direction he saw her head in. He slowly headed in that direction as quietly as he could manage. Before he could make it within visible range of the doorway, Amanda spoke.

"Don't even try it, Stetson, unless you want to have soapy clothing thrown in your face." Amanda over her shoulder as her husband came into view. She had suds up to her elbows, as she rooted around in the washing machine.

"Amanda," Lee said cautiously, "what is going on here?" Once he asked that question, he really wasn't sure that he wanted the answer. The answer probably had to do with the tendency for Amanda's appliances to commit suicide, usually when she was short of money, or during other completely inconvenient timing.

"The washing machine decided to throw a fit and die in the middle of the spin cycle, without running a rinse first."

"Huh? Plain english, please?"

"Sweetheart, that was plain english. You've not used to doing laundry like regular people. When you throw clothes in a washing machine, you throw in soap and the machine fills with water and moves the clothes around. Then it drains and fills up with water again to rinse the soap off the clothes. Then it drains again, and spins the clothes very quickly to get the water off the clothes." Lee was nodding, but looked perplexed at this last statement, so Amanda continued to clarify. "It spins the clothes so that we don't have to wring them out when we pull them out of the machine. Then we can put them in the dryer or hang them outside to dry. This piece of machinery," she gestured with a sudsy hand, "decided to skip getting the soap out of the clothes and headed straight for the spin cycle."

Lee thought about this for a minute. "These things connect with hoses, right? Maybe one got disconnected and couldn't get water into the machine?"

"Then it would be highly likely that we'd have the newly formed Lake Stetson on the floor of this little room. I don't think that's it." Amanda finished pulling the last of the clothes out and dumped them into a tub that was at her feet. She moved the tub out of the way with her foot, and reached over to restart the washing machine. Nothing happened. She lowered the lid on the machine hoping that perhaps it thought that it was still in the middle of the cycle and would start up once the lid was down. Once again, nothing happened. She groaned as she laid her head down on her still sudsy arm.

"It's dead, huh?"

"Yehe, amiwoderngwtsnthzusdepc," Amanda mumbled into her arm.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand arm mumbling, Amanda."

She lifted her head to repeat her statement in a doom filled voice. "Yes, it did die. And I'm wondering what's appliance is in the suicide pact with *this* one."

"Don't be si-," Lee stopped himself from going further with that statement after remembering how angry Amanda was after her lawnmower and station wagon decided to die on the same day a year earlier. "Don't worry about it. I'll take a look at it when I get back."

"Back? Where are *you* going?"

"To Randy's bar to have a drink with Billy." He smiled that mega-watt smile at his wife, thinking that she'd pick up on what was going on.

"My washing machine just died, we don't have a way to do all the laundry that's piled up for the last few days while we were moving you in, and you're going out for a drink with Billy. I just don't under-" Amanda was cut off by Lee holding one hand up.

"He told me to mind my manners, Amanda."

"Oh." She thought about this for a moment, realizing that it had to do with their jobs and the potential of getting them back. Acting as if there were extra ears listening to them, she simply stated, "Have a good time."

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He walked into Randy's 40 minutes after last speaking with Billy, and looked around. There were a fair amount of people in the bar for that time of day, but not enough to make it a problematic meeting place. Lee walked along the bar, and then turned towards the booths near the back. He found who he was looking for in the last booth in the corner – as far away from any other doors or rooms as one could be in the place.

"Pick up an extra guest, Scarecrow?"

"Nah, Billy. The washing machine decided to commit hara-kiri, and we're hoping that it didn't have an agreement with something else in the house to die."

"Lee, I never thought I'd see the day when you'd be talking about household appliances as if it were perfectly natural." Billy shook his head and looked back down into his beer.

"What? It isn't natural for the washing machine to up and die?" Lee smiled, his hazel eyes twinkling at his boss' teasing. "Amanda's got it covered. Much better than I could have handled it right now, anyway. So, what are the latest goings-on?"

"Not much. Smyth is working his way through the ranks, though. Anyone who's got even the most remote personal connection to anyone else in The Agency is being raked over the coals. I don't get it, Lee. He's even going after the guys who stage monthly poker games about fraternizing outside the work environment."

"Sounds like someone burned Smyth badly in a personal way. That doesn't give us much to work with as to why he worked so hard to bounce Amanda and I. Do you think that he tried to get involved with someone in The Agency and it went south?"

Billy shook his head. "I couldn't begin to tell you, Lee. That man's personal life is more secret than the Hoover files were. But you have my backing, unofficially of course, if you want to pursue this. I, for one, am going to take a stroll up Pennsylvania Avenue later this week, and see if I can't ruffle a few feathers about what's going on." He took a sip of his beer and continued before Lee could interrupt him. "Don't worry about it, either. I have a few contacts up there, and you and Amanda have done enough to have your names on the President's desk more than once in a favorable light. I'm sure I could make a few statements on your behalf and get a temporary re-instatement for the two of you, but that's going to take some time and some doing."

"Thanks, Billy. Hey, I meant to ask you: have you shut up the Q, or is Francine handling it now?"

"The Q's still active, Lee, but I can't spare Francine at all now that you and Amanda are out. Until then, I gave it to Becca Dobson." He stopped his beer mug from making the full trip to his mouth and looked over the mug at Lee.

"Becca Dobson? Wait a minute, isn't she supposed to be in contact zero – and extremely deep cover?" Lee had creased his brow at this development, and didn't seem too pleased that she was the one who had the Q.

"Yes, and we managed to get her out of there two weeks ago with tons of information. She spent about a week in debriefing, and Pfaff has cleared her to work in the field again. I'd been giving her milk runs, but she tired of it, and I offered her the Q."

"I hope you told her it was on a temporary basis."

"Of course, Lee. And we both know she hates paperwork more than you do, but she wanted it anyway." Billy took one more sip of his beer before putting the mug down and pushing it away. "I hope this doesn't make anything uncomfortable for you, considering your history with Becca."

"No. That was over long ago and far away. Long before I even knew Amanda existed. No worries."

"Does Amanda know about her?"

"No. But she will tonight. I don't want to have to explain Boo after she and Amanda run into each other. That would be worse than when Amanda first met Francine. I can just see it now – and I thought that Francine had been hard on Amanda when they first met and she started working with me." Lee stretched his arms out, and then used them to push himself up out of the booth. "Thanks for the time Billy. I should get back home."

A sultry voice behind him spoke up. "What's your hurry, handsome?"

Lee turned around to face the sparkling blue eyes of Becca Dobson. "Becca. Good to see you again." He put one hand out to shake hers, but she would have none of that. She leaned in closely and aimed a kiss at him, but her target was misplaced as Lee had turned his head so she could catch him on the cheek. Becca raised an eyebrow at this, and she took another step towards Lee.

Lee, knowing what Becca was about to do, took one step back away, and turned slightly so that she couldn't corner him back there with Billy. Now he was able to keep the booth and Becca behind him and have a clear path to the exit. Becca started to pout slightly as she realized that Lee had the advantage of escape. Knowing that she had lost, she put her hand out for Lee to shake. He grasped it lightly and then let go quickly. "So, Becca, I hear you've gotten stuck with the Q while my partner and I are on the outs."

"Yes, Billy thought that I was more than capable of handling it, and I agreed."

"Well, don't get too comfortable up there. It's only temporary." He smiled knowingly at Billy.

"I won't, Scarecrow. It's lonely up there, and I'm definitely going to need your help to dig my out of the place." Becca stated this in such a leading tone that you would have to be the village idiot to not know where she was going with this statement. Billy stayed wise and silent as he got up to leave. "And, after all, it's more fun with two." Billy and Lee looked at each other and rolled their eyes.

"Nice to know after so many years that you haven't changed a bit, Becca. Remember, Amanda and I are going to want our office back, so keep it in good shape for us." With that, Lee turned to leave.

"You can count on it, Scarecrow. You can count on it," Becca said almost to herself.

Billy chose this moment to interrupt her thoughts before he left. "Boo, he's a happily married man. Amanda's a wonderful woman – I couldn't have asked for better for him. I don't know of anyone who would want to hurt either of them." The tone in Billy's voice dropped to an almost threatening level for that last statement. He turned to leave but Becca's voice stopped him.

"Come on, Billy, do you honestly think that Lee Stetson has changed his stripes? This is the man who works 10 minutes a day, and works 2 different women a night."

The older man was slow to smile. "It's been 5 years, Becca, since you've been around. And things have changed. You said so yourself." With that, he walked away, leaving the agent alone in the back of the bar with her thoughts.

Becca watched the older man leave, and quietly mused on his last statement to her. 'You're right, Billy. Some things have changed. And some people never change,' she thought to herself. She hadn't changed much in the last 5 years despite the deep cover she had to maintain for most of that time. And she was willing to bet that Lee Stetson hadn't changed that much either.

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Lee walked back into the house, placing his keys on the little table by the front door out of habit. Amanda had installed a rack for keys by the corkboard in the kitchen, but Lee hadn't gotten quite used to it. Besides it was easier to just look towards the front door when he needed to go out, and if the keys to the 'vette were missing, he'd know to head straight for Philip's room.

He shook his head over that one for a moment. When Philip had first seen the car he had been very admiring of Lee and the car – it was almost like hero-worship. They both loved to play basketball and watch it on television; they shared a love of fast sports cars; they had no qualms about ordering pizza for dinner. But something changed and Lee couldn't quite figure out what it was. Shortly before he and Amanda had announced their marriage, Philip had started to distance himself from Lee – he was acting very similar to Jaime – sort of. He lightened up a bit when Lee had asked if it was ok for him to move in, but within a day he was sullen, and un-responsive to Lee. Upon hearing that Lee and Amanda were more involved than anyone knew, Jaime had lightened up considerably towards Lee and they had started to develop an easy pattern of conversation with each other, and weren't uncomfortable around each other anymore. Now it was Jaime's turn to tell Philip to lighten up on Lee.

Both Lee and Amanda had thought that Philip's attitude was due to the misunderstanding that arose when he had called over to the apartment one night and Lee's therapist (an old female friend) had answered the phone. Both Lee and Amanda also thought that once the misunderstanding had been cleared up, that Philip's attitude would blow over. But so far, it had not, and neither of the two agents could figure out the solution to this puzzle. Either way, they still had a problem relating to one of the boys. Lee realized that he was learning parenting as a crash course – much in the same way Amanda learned how to be an agent – flying by the seat of her pants (sometimes, literally). And that in both jobs, solving the mystery was half the challenge.

The house was still and quiet for the time that Lee was standing there, and he called out, "Anybody home?" Nothing answered back at him except the ticking of the kitchen clock. It was a rare occasion that he was alone in the house, and that still made him a little wary of wandering around. He knew that he could go wherever he pleased now – it wasn't as if he was sneaking into the house to check up on Amanda, or to check things out when the family was out camping or on a trip – but he still sometimes felt like he didn't belong there. Shrugging the feeling off as being silly, he headed into the kitchen hoping that he would find the mail somewhere as the box was empty outside and the bills they had left earlier for pickup were gone. After checking some of the usual spots, he looked around and saw a stack of letters and a purple box on the kitchen table.

Lee picked up the letters and flipped through them – one from Lillian to Dotty, another to Amanda from a woman whose name he didn't recognize, some junk mail, another bill – but that box caught his attention. Whoever had brought in the mail earlier had taken it out of its wrapping paper, which was nowhere to be found. The box stated that it was from an outfit called "Rebecca's Fantasies". Lee found that a small smile had crept up on his face, thinking that Amanda had bought them a little present. He knew that there wasn't anyone in the house, but he looked around himself anyway before he lifted the lid of the box very carefully to peek inside. He caught a quick glimpse of something black and lacy just as the front door banged open and he heard Philip and Jaime come in the house and head for the den. He grabbed the box and headed upstairs quickly to deposit the box in his and Amanda's bedroom. He slid the box under the bed, and went back downstairs to greet the boys. As he rounded the corner to get back into the kitchen, he ran right into Dotty.

"Oh! Lee. I'm sorry. Are you all right, darling?" Dotty looked distracted and flustered.

"I'm fine. It's ok. Is something wrong?"

"No, I was just looking for a, er, letter, but I think I've misplaced it."

"Did it come today? I was flipping through the mail on the table earlier, and I only saw a letter to you from Lillian, but if it's somewhere in the house I can help you find it."

"No, Lee, thank you. That's all right. I'm sure it will turn up somewhere." Dotty smiled reassuringly at her son-in-law. Before she could say anything further, Philip appeared and walked between the two of them as if they weren't there, heading for the fridge. She turned to her oldest grandson. "Philip, did you have a good day?"

"Hi, Grandma. Yeah, everything was fine. Can I go over to Scotty's place to play some ball before dinner?" He deliberately was avoiding talking to Lee, which prompted the agent to take action.

"Hey Philip, your mom should be home any minute now, so why don't you and I go shoot some hoops in the driveway?" Lee had put up a basketball hoop a couple of months earlier when it became more natural for him to spend more and more time in Arlington, rather than play ball with the boys on weekends at the park near his apartment. It also allowed for Philip and Jaime to bring their friends over to the house more often and payback for many of the times they had gone over to their friends' houses after school.

"Uh, no thanks, Lee. Never mind, Grandma, I'll just head upstairs and do my homework." He grabbed the glass of milk that he poured for himself and headed back upstairs.

Lee looked after the boy and shook his head. Jaime had entered the room by this point and kissed his grandmother on the cheek and quipped a quick "hey" to Lee while he headed for the fridge. He also grabbed a glass of milk and commented, "He's just being a lamebrain. I don't get how he could be so cool about you one day and be so down on you the next, Lee. I mean, I got over it, but I started out not liking you when you were nothing but cool to me. But he's not talking to me."

Dotty just shook her head and pulled an apron out of a drawer to start working on something for dinner. Lee looked over at her and then to Jaime. "It's ok, sport. It's something that he and I are going to have to work out, whenever he decides it's time to work on it." He got a hopeful look on his face. "Wanna go shoot some hoops?"

"Nah, I want to get started on my homework. But I'd be willing to beat you at Scrabble after dinner if we can get Mom to play."

"It's a deal." Lee reached over to shake Jaime's hand and smile at him. He watched as his youngest stepson headed out of the kitchen in a much better mood than his brother had left minutes earlier. "Dotty, need any help with dinner?"

"Thank you, Lee, but no. Just go into the living room and pick up the dictionary. No offense, but you're going to need it if you're going to play against Jaime and Amanda." She smiled at the look of dismay on Lee's face and turned back to the chicken she was cutting up for dinner.