Spoilers:The term spoilers only apply to revelations about unaired episodes. All aired episodes become part of the canon, and thus I allude to them without warning. This piece begins at the end of the final episode of the sixth season.

Liaison de Congrès

Scene Four

Just after their entrees arrived Bruce felt a sharp pounding on his arm. "Ow! What?" he asked Amy, who was banging on his arm to catch his attention. A mouth full of endive and radicchio, she pointed excitedly to a man sitting a few tables away. Bruce looked up to see a familiar face. "Amy, that's the committee chairman for your hearings this morning."

She swallowed a big gulp of iced tea. "I know."

"You spent over an hour in his presence."

"I know."

"He called you 'esteemed'."

"I know."

"Then where's the excitement?"

"We're eating lunch with a senator."

Bruce laughed at her star-struck eagerness.

Throughout the rest of lunch, they people watched. "Look, there's the house minority whip!" "Hey, she's a congressional aid." "Isn't that the policy wonk who was on C-SPAN the other morning talking about social security?" Bruce pointed out any public figure he recognized—and several he didn't—happy to finally see Amy relax and the tension leave her face. He didn't realize she was on to him until he suddenly heard her say "Hey, Bruce, there's the D.C. dogcatcher! I heard he was elected with sixty-seven percent of the popular vote!" Both erupted into laughter, causing heads to turn.

"Shhh. Shhh." Amy put her finger to her lips. "You're embarrassing me."

"Me? You started it," Bruce whispered back, grinning.

"I started it?" Amy closed her eyes, nodded, and sighed contentedly. Then she looked up at him seriously. "Okay, maybe, but I really needed that. Things haven't been so good lately. I've got this tough case a work—a kid who really needs help, but the funding just isn't there."

"Yeah, I heard," Bruce murmured, more interested that she still used the present tense to refer to her job.

"Then Mom and I had a big fight last night at dinner. Lauren was great though."

He nodded.

"And then the pressure to decide about this senate campaign." She paused. "And our fight. I really missed you, Bruce. I guess I just assumed that you'd always be there."

"I missed you, too," he said, giving her hand a quick squeeze.

They sat that way for a moment, quiet in the stirrings of a now half-empty restaurant.

"So." Bruce pushed away his nearly empty plate and downed the remainder of his coffee.

"So." Amy picked up her fork to finish the last bites of her pasta.

"What do you want to do now?"

"Can we just head back to the hotel? I'd really like to get out of this suit."

"Not a problem. This tie is killing me."

"Try nylons and heels."

"I have."

"You have? When?"

"College. A long time ago. Let's not talk about it. Okay?"

"For now. I'll wait 'til I have some stronger persuasion." And she clinked his coffee cup with the tines of her fork before gathering up her possessions and the bill and heading to the front desk.

To be continued…

Acknowledgements: Thanks as usual to Soylent Gringa, who reads everything I write and lots of stuff I don't. Special thanks to my husband, who watches Judging Amy with me every Tuesday; his ear has helped me improve the dialogue and excise the clichés. His patience is especially commendable as he thinks fanfic is rather silly.

Disclaimer: Judging Amy and it characters are the property of Barbara Hall/Joseph Stern Productions, in association with CBS Productions and Twentieth Century Fox Television. I wrote this story to explore a few possibilities and intend no copywrite infringement. only.